Australian pianist David Helfgott is about to embark on one final tour of Australia.

Presented by Andrew Kay, Helfgott will bid farewell to public performance with a two-piano arrangement Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with British pianist Rhodri Clarke. As well as that signature work, he will also perform solo ballades by Chopin and Liszt and Mendelssohn’s Rondo Cappricioso in a series concerts scheduled for Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Sydney in July and August.

In Adelaide, Helfgott will perform a solo recital that features Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata and Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto.

David Helfgott. Image supplied

Helfgott’s life and career was the subject of director Scott Hicks’ Academy Award-winning biographical drama Shine (1996). The film traces his turbulent childhood and his struggle with schizoaffective symptoms while practicing Rachmaninov’s Third Concerto, after being awarded a scholarship to study at London’s Royal College of Music at the age of 19.

In 2023, he was one of four musicians featured in an Australian documentary spotlighting neurodiversity, The Musical Mind: A portrait in process, also directed by Hicks.

David Helfgott in The Musical Mind

“Helfgott is,...