SHE was the first YouTube star of classical music and has a global concert career but Valentina Lisitsa credits a Scot for helping her from quitting at a difficult period in her life.

In an interview ahead of her first performance in Scotland, the Ukrainian revealed to the National that years ago a new internet contact, Lewis Kelday, had urged her to carry on when she was in despair about her lack of progress.

“He was one of the first to encourage me and that helped to lift me out of my depressive state,” she explained. “He is not a musician – he works in a bank – but he just stumbled on my first video and was compelled to write to me and tell me that he had been truly overcome.

“I wrote back to him telling him I was considering quitting but a few emails later he had talked me through it. Sometimes all it takes is for one person to say the right words at the right moment – one of the great things about social media is that you can find friends all over the world.”

HOW FAMOUS IS SHE NOW?
Valentina’s YouTube channel now has 346,000 subscribers and 147 million views with an incredible average of 75,000 views per day.

It’s hard to believe she was ever at rock bottom but that’s exactly where she was when she posted her first video more than 10 years ago. The problem was that despite her virtuosity – and a thorough training in her native city of Kiev at the Lysenko Music School for gifted children and then at the city’s Conservatoire – she found it very difficult to build a career as a concert pianist based in the US after moving there with her husband, Alexei Kuznetsoff. Depressed, frustrated and on the verge of quitting, she reached out through social media and posted a video on YouTube. It was this rather fuzzy rendition of her playing Little Red Riding Hood by Rachmaninov that caught Lewis’s attention.

“I came across her on the internet and she played with such virtuosity I thought it was fake at first – the speed of her playing was mesmerising,” he remembered. “She also had natural charisma. I then saw her playing very gentle children’s pieces and realised that this one person was most unusual because of her range, expression and technique.”

WHAT DID HE DO?
LEWIS said he sent her a respectful email and did not expect a reply but got one within a couple of hours explaining how hard things had been.

“I was amazed to find she wasn’t signed to anyone and that she was considering a civil service type job as a translator. I soon drew a parallel between her experience and mine as I had escaped from a job I had hated and advised her that she shouldn’t try to be other than her true self because she would end up even worse emotionally – and she listened.”

Modestly, Lewis said that all he did was offer moral support at a difficult time but because he had experience of setting up and running a MySpace page, he offered to set one up for her. It proved to be a big success and revealed an existing fan base all over the world.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
HE also sent CDs to radio stations in the UK and tried to secure her a venue, receiving many knockbacks in the process because of her lack of fame.

“Between us we negotiated a spot at the Wigmore Hall in London and at short notice their PR agent secured a live performance on Radio Three,” he said. “People heard her play and this contributed to a full house at the Wigmore Hall which was a tremendous mood booster.

“Then Alexei and Valentina showed tremendous imagination by putting highly professional videos on YouTube, investing in microphones and cameras to demonstrate Valentina’s amazing playing over a wide range of the piano repertoire, and in due course she became a cult figure.”

Valentina was eventually asked to perform at the Royal Albert Hall with the performance streamed live. It was the first time a concert had been streamed live from the venue and it was watched by millions.

“It was tremendous pressure but she handled it all extremely well – Valentina is very professional,” said Lewis.

ANY SURPRISES?
TO his astonishment, before the concert began, Valentina grabbed the microphone and told the story of how she had been encouraged by him.

“She yelled out my name and I wasn’t ready for that at all! I just think it was very lucky that I was able to relate the experiences of my own life and translate them to hers and give her and her husband support at a time when they needed it. The real credit goes to Valentina herself and her husband. I just gave moral support.”

Lewis added: “Many of us don’t use the information and experience that we gain in life but if you step back and think, you can turn things around. It’s true that if you step up to the plate to do the right thing there is an ouch factor that goes with it. My ouch factor was that while sending Val’s recordings out and being rewarded by knockbacks I felt very bad for Valentina and Alexei. However, if it all comes good it’s a tremendous feeling and all the credit for that goes to Valentina and Alexei.

“After the Royal Albert Hall concert she became famous overnight. She was signed to Decca right away and she was guaranteed masses of work and appreciative audiences worldwide could since testify to the worth of that.”

WHAT ABOUT THE VIDEOS?
INITIALLY, posting videos was frowned on by some in the classical world but many musicians have followed Valentina’s example. She herself no longer needs to post videos but continues to do so in order to reach out to people who might otherwise not be exposed to classical music.

“When I first started it was younger people who saw the videos and it encouraged many of them to come to a classical concert for the first time,” she said. “I want to keep the interest up.”

In the meantime, she is preparing for her tour with the Russian State Philharmonic Orchestra and will perform at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall on March 4. There she will play Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto, the most technically challenging of the composer’s four piano concertos.

Lewis and his wife, Doreen, and friends from his workplace already have their tickets and Valentina said she was delighted to be playing in Edinburgh for the first time.

“I’m very excited. I have never been to Edinburgh but through social media I now have many dear friends here.”