An Evening With Amy Lehpamer

We knew she was good, but we didn’t know she was that good! Amy Lehpamer has been visiting Brisbane for the past few years as a leading lady in The Sound of Music, Beautiful and The School of Rock, but it was the breadth of her talent that was on display last night at QPAC’s Lyrebird Restaurant. Simply amazing!

QPAC’s second show in their QPAC Unlocked series was an elegant mix of fine food and musical theatre, with Lehpamer accompanied on grand piano by Brendan Murtagh, essaying a career run-down of songs from shows she has appeared in.

Opening with ‘Here I Am’, a jazzy-Latin riff from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and following with Maria’s ‘I Have Confidence’ from the Sound of Music, Grease’s ‘Hopelessly Devoted to You’ and Dusty’s ‘The Look of Love’, she immediately won the audience. ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’ from Beautiful kept the sixties vibe going, but it was her version of ‘The Fiddler’, where she played violin off-mike and sang ‘If I Were A Rich Man’, that showed her incredible versatility.

The second half had more of the same, ‘I Wanna Know What Love Is’ (Rock of Ages), ‘Natural Woman’ (Beautiful, and the arresting and lovely ‘Falling Slowly’ (Once) which she performed with her partner Tom Cooney on guitar. Best and most effective song of the night was ‘What About That’, Simone Warne’s heartfelt emotional cry from Eddie Perfect’s under-heard, and under-produced, Shane Warne – The Musical. It had pathos and honesty. She closed the set with a soaring version of the title song from The Sound of Music, and Dusty’s ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’.

Murtagh’s ivory tickling had colour, and his occasional forays into backing vocals added even more to the ambience. Cooney returned on guitar for a Stevie Nicks number as an encore.

It was an exciting night, and with superb food and wine - it’s not surprising that both performances in the season sold out. With the venue restricted to 54 people, and tables socially-distanced, it was excellent high-end theatre restaurant, and something QPAC should definitely look at repeating as they come out of Covid lockdown.

Peter Pinne

Images: Amy Lehpamer accompanied by Tom Cooney on guitar and Amy accompanied by Brendan Murtagh on piano. Images courtesy of QPAC.