The Gandalf of the keys is headed for Oz, and Sydneysiders take note, the sorcerer of Continuous Music is seeking an apprentice.

Lubomyr Melnyk has been acclaimed worldwide as “the world’s fastest pianist”, but for the 68-year-old Ukranian composer, whose family migrated with him to Canada, there’s a great deal more to his “Continuous Music” than that. Although he can reportedly rattle off 19.5 notes per second – as verified by the Guinness Book of Records – he revels in a semi-shamanistic persona and has previously likened his playing to “an eagle flying, a dolphin swimming, a cheetah running”. Indeed, he told the Guardian in 2015 that in performance he “turns into the rain, into the clouds, into the colour of the sky”.

Melnyk can now count himself relatively successful – a respected, senior hipster even – but acceptance was a very long time coming for the avant-garde musician who trained as a classical pianist before being smacked between the eyes by Terry Riley’s 1968 minimalist masterpiece In C. Soon after, Melnyk moved to Paris where he lived from 1973 to 1975, earning a living as a janitor at the Paris Opera and playing for modern dance classes, most...