Seventeen-year-old pianist Freya Terris has rewritten a small but meaningful corner of musical history by becoming the first one-handed musician to pass the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) grade 8 exam program. The achievement follows more than a year of determined practice and remote instruction after an injury to her right hand left her unable to play with two hands. Until Terris’ request and subsequent success, the highest ABRSM grade program available to one-handed pianists had been grade five.
Piano was central to Terris’ childhood. "The first thing I remember really doing was playing Defying Gravity from Wicked with my piano teacher ... I was about six," she recalled. Those early years of immersion in the instrument would form the foundation for the work she later undertook after an unexpected medical setback.
Two years ago, Terris faced a sudden and career-altering problem: an erosion of bone in her right hand that affected the surrounding nerves and required surgical intervention. The operation and its aftermath left her without the use of her right hand for pianistic purposes. Confronted with the loss of a long-familiar means of expression, she did not stop. Instead, she and an Arizona-based teacher set out to adapt her technique and repertoire for a single hand.
Teen musician pictured at home; after remote coaching from an Arizona piano teacher, she adapted repertoire for one-handed performance and helped make one-handed piano history.
The teaching relationship that followed crossed the Atlantic and a seven-hour time difference. Rory Dowse, a piano teacher based in north Phoenix, led the remote instruction. Terris spent more than a year relearning how to make a full musical statement with only her left hand, reshaping technique and rethinking familiar pieces to meet the demands of one-handed performance. The work involved both practical adaptations of repertoire and a retraining of the hand to take on musical responsibilities typically shared between two.
"It might be fair to say I love playing the piano a little bit too much," Terris said, reflecting on the drive that carried her through months of rehabilitation and practice. Dowse said the teen’s response to the setback set her apart. "Where more people would maybe accept that setback and stop playing and quit the piano, she did the opposite," he said, describing a student who doubled down on the work rather than retreating. The progress, he added, was the result of sustained effort and a willingness to reshape expectations about what a one-handed pianist can accomplish.
Dowse described the technical challenges in blunt terms. "It's very difficult," he said, noting that pianists are accustomed to assigning melody and much musical detail to the right hand while the left provides accompaniment and harmonic support. "We're used to using the right hand to play melody and left-hand accompaniment with some bits in between. And all of a sudden, one hand is taking on the demands of what you could do with two." That shift required not only physical adaptation but also creative problem-solving to present convincing musical lines and harmonic fullness using a single hand.
Recognizing that existing exam programs did not meet Terris’ needs, she wrote to the ABRSM to ask for a grade eight exam program tailored for a one-handed pianist. At the time, the organization’s highest available examination level for one-handed players was grade five. The ABRSM, which has nearly a 140-year history administering music examinations, granted the request, and Terris moved forward with the more demanding material. Her success marked a first in the board’s long history: she became the first one-handed pianist to complete and pass the grade 8 program.
Terris spoke about the place of examinations in a musical life with practical clarity. "Exams aren’t the be all and end all with music," she said, acknowledging that most musicians do not make music simply to earn certifications. Still, she said formal qualifications have tangible value. "Nobody makes music to take an exam and get a classification out of it. But at the same time, it’s a useful thing to have. It’s nice to say you’ve got it and even in the face of applying to university and things like that."
Both teacher and student acknowledged the small but significant nature of the milestone. Dowse said he had confidence in Terris’ capacity to succeed: "I knew she would do it. I was really pleased that she had made that massive progress for herself." For Terris, the grade 8 pass is a step in a continuing musical trajectory rather than an endpoint. She said she plans to keep studying music, with the intention of pursuing higher education in the field and "keep enjoying what I’m doing."
The accomplishment stands as a detailed case of adaptation within classical music pedagogy: a young musician, faced with a medical challenge that removed a conventional method of playing, worked with a teacher across time zones to reconceive repertoire and technique, successfully petitioned a long-established examining body for access to higher-level assessment for one-handed players, and completed that assessment at the most advanced level then available. The work involved sustained remote instruction over months, an intensive period of relearning and repertoire adjustment, and close teacher-student collaboration.
Terris’ path forward is defined by continuity rather than closure. She has no plans to stop performing or studying; instead, she expects to bring the same persistence to further musical study at the university level. The recent grade 8 pass is both a credential and a practical step in an ongoing career that has already required adaptation, long-distance collaboration and creative reimagining of how the piano can be made to sing with a single hand.
Freya earned her distinction in January 2026 after performing works including Moszkowski, Reger, Bowen and Adlam. ABRSM told her she had secured "a little place in history" in the board's 137 years and will add official one-hand repertoire lists for Grades 1-8 in the 2027-28 syllabus. Rory Dowse's blog notes her success shows "If you don't ask, you don't get."
Rory Dowse’s studio page includes a student showcase recording of Terris performing Scriabin’s Nocturne for Left Hand, Op. 9 No. 2, listed as a recording from the 2025 Young Musician competition finals and used on the site with permission.
Friends’ School Lisburn’s 2024–25 annual report records that Freya Terris (Year 12) reached the final of the Northern Ireland Young Musician of the Year in March during that school year.
Dowse’s teaching site notes a specialised remote setup for advanced online lessons — high-quality audio and a multi-camera arrangement that provides detailed views of hand technique and pedaling, which the studio cites as supporting students who have achieved Grade 8 Distinctions via remote instruction.