The Australian Chamber Orchestra aren’t the only musicians getting high with their music-making. Italian pianist and mountaineer Elisa Tomellini has performed what has been dubbed the “world’s highest piano concert”, playing at an altitude of 4,460 metres on Monte Rosa in the Pennine Alps. This would appear to beat the record set by German pianist Stefan Aaron in 2012, performing at an altitude of 4206 metres on Alphubel in the Swiss Alps.

Tomellini climbed the mountain herself (sans the piano, which was airlifted in by helicopter), according to a report in The Local. In wind and temperature 15 degrees below zero, she performed wearing gloves. According to her website, Tomellini performed the concert “in order to close the circle of my two lives, that of a pianist and the life in which I temporarily abandoned music to discover the beauty of the world, I performed what  is called the world’s highest piano concert after scaling a 14,000ft peak in the Alps.”

Elisa TomelliniElisa Tomellini. Photo © Joseph Giachino

“I also wanted to bring music and the mountain into people’s hearts, and to help people...