When Matthew Trayling uploaded a video of his mom, 80-year-old Natalie Trayling playing the keyboard on the streets of Melbourne, Australia, he had no idea that it would go viral. The video depicts Natalie playing a mesmerizingly beautiful musical piece on the sidewalk of a busy Melbourne street as passersby drop coins – or stand watching in amazement. And this was not the first time that Matthew had uploaded a video of his mother performing. Natalie is celebrating her 80 th birthday today, (October 23, 2014) and has been performing on the streets of Melbourne and other cities of Australia for decades. Needless to say, it was only fitting that the world sees more of her talent. At the time of the writing of this article, the video has crossed over 1.1 million views and is fast rising up the popularity charts.
It is unclear as to why it is only now that this video of Natalie performing went viral. Matthew’s YouTube channel has several other videos showing Natalie’s incredible talent. What is even more remarkable is the fact that many of these musical pieces are her own compositions and cannot be heard anywhere else. However, Natalie has chosen to be this way. In fact, she is pretty famous across Australia and decades ago, had been featured on Australian News networks. Little is known about Natalie’s personal life. In a short documentary made in the mid 90’s, Natalie was reported to be married with four children. Matthew Trayling has in one of his Google+ posts indicated that two of his sisters have since then passed away.
If you look at Matthew’s YouTube channel, it is hard to miss this particular video in which Natalie is seen playing the piano in a hospital. We have embedded it below. According to Matthew, that video was recorded after Natalie suffered from a life threatening case of anemia and only luckily managed to survive. In the video, you can hear Natalie saying out to Matthew, “Today is the last day of winter”. And that is what Matthew decided to call that particular composition, which mind you, was composed on the spot by Natalie Trayling.
Matthew’ description of Natalie’s video clarifies that the video that went viral involves a composition that was written when Natalie was 13 or 14 years old.
He writes.
“This musical piece was composed between the age of 13 and 14 and finished some years later. Another insight into the mind of this musical genius. Enjoy.”
When he realized his video is going viral, he added.
“I made a comment 12 days ago after observing the dramatically increasing views on YouTube of this video I filmed an uploaded of Natalie (my mum) that reaching 100,000 views would be a wonderful gift for her 80th Birthday being tomorrow. Well…..it seems at this stage (884,272 views) that it might just make “ONE MILLION” at some stage during the day. This is not just phenomenal. It’s rightly earned by her. The world is listening, and not just listening to an old lady playing piano on the street, but listening to a musical genius.”
He calls Natalie “arguably the best ‘unknown’ composer in the world today”. And we have no reason to disagree! What do you think about Natalie and her incredible talent? To be honest she did remind me of Father Ray Kelly , whose video went viral earlier this year when he performed at a church, during a marriage ceremony.
[Image Via YouTube]
