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The Piano winner driven to prove she could do it

Rachael McMenemy
Channel 4 Grace Matthews sitting next to a piano. She is facing the camera and wearing a two-toned brown sweater and black trousers. She wears glasses and long, dark hair. Behind her is a glass barrier with wooden railing and behind the glass is the food court area of a train station.Channel 4
Grace Matthews won season four of Channel 4's The Piano

As a child Grace Matthews loved nothing more than playing her miniature pink piano.

And her passion for music only intensified as she overcame the challenges of having her fingers amputated after contracting meningitis when only four years old.

Today the 19-year-old from Norwich is known to millions after winning Channel 4's The Piano show 15 years after she contracted meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia, conditions which also resulted in her lower legs being amputated.

"I've never really thought to pursue it as a career or The Piano show. I think, for me, it was more just to prove that I can do it," she said.

Grace found a love for music and was inspired to try piano by her music therapist while being treated at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

It came after she was rushed to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 2011 with a high temperature and was later moved to Addenbrooke's where she had life-saving surgery.

Once home, she progressed from her little electric keyboard to a full-sized electric piano.

Now she has a traditional upright piano at home and plays every day, hitting the notes using her palm, half a thumb and the stub of a little finger.

She said: "I don't know how I play to be honest. I think, because I've had my amputation from such a young age it's just kind of normal to me and I get on with it.

"I think once I figure out what parts of my hands I can and can't use, it's more about adapting the song to me, rather than adapting myself to the song," she added.

More stories about Grace:

Cambridge University Hospitals Grace aged three sits in front of a pink toy piano. She wears a pink and blue checked dress.Cambridge University Hospitals
Grace aged three, before her illness, loved playing music

For the final, she said she wanted to challenge herself to perform a song called Experience, which she had heard on Spotify and seen others perform on social media.

"I saw other people playing it on TikTok and it looked really complicated, which it was. I had to take quite a few bits out of it and move things around to suit how I play, figuring out what parts of my hand I could use to play the song," she told BBC Look East.

Winning the show had been "so surreal", she said.

Her mum, Vicky Matthews, said seeing her perform was a moment she "would never forget".

"We would never have dreamt anything like that.

"To have no fingers and play the piano just doesn't go together. And then to be on stage at a sell-out concert to over 2,000 people and get performance of the night was mind blowing, [we are] just so proud."

Channel 4 Grace Matthews in a black halter neck top and trousers made out of silky material. She has an arm raised up to her mouth in shock. She is walking along a stage, a drum can be seen behind her and to her left is a man in a black shirt and trousers mid clap.Channel 4
Grace says she has to arrange music to suit the way she plays

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