CONDOLEEZZA RICE, who took her first piano lesson at the age of three and was a would-be concert pianist in her teens, played in front of a packed theatre at the weekend to raise awareness of a rare and life-threatening disease.

The US Secretary of State accompanied a 21-year-old soprano who had pulmonary hypertension, a lung disease, diagnosed a little more than a year ago. Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick sang as Dr Rice played selections by Verdi, Mozart and Jerome Kern.

Ms Tillemann-Dick, who uses Charity Sunshine as her stage name, is the granddaughter of Tom Lantos, a veteran Californian congressman, the only Holocaust survivor on Capitol Hill and an old friend of Dr Rice.

The concert, at Washington’s Kennedy Centre, was Dr Rice’s idea after Mr Lantos had told her about his granddaughter’s plight. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, was among the political and diplomatic members of the audience.

Pulmonary hypertension is a little-understood and incurable disease that causes high blood pressure in the pulmonary artery, which connects the heart to the lungs, and can lead to an enlarged heart and heart failure. Its symptoms include chest pain, breathlessness, low energy, dizziness and fainting.

Dr Rice, who grew up in segregated Alabama, was something of a child prodigy.

Her parents, who were teachers, gave their only child early lessons in French, ballet, ice-skating and the piano. She was playing Beethoven before her feet could touch the pedals. Her first name comes from the Italian musical direction to play “con dolcezza”, with sweetness.

She dreamed of becoming a concert pianist before her classes in Soviet Studies at the University of Colorado took her on to Stanford University in California and then Washington. She served her first White House stint on the National Security Council of the first President Bush and spent the past four years as his son’s National Security Adviser, a job which allowed her to operate largely from the shadows.

Her promotion to the position of Secretary of State at the start of Mr Bush’s second term has seen her public profile increase dramatically in the US and abroad. But Dr Rice remains wary about playing in public. Saturday evening’s performance was unpublicised and no television cameras were allowed in.

She plays with friends in an occasional private quartet. To prepare for the concert on Saturday, Dr Rice practised with Ms Tillemann-Dick at her flat in the Watergate complex, where she has a baby grand piano.

Ms Tillemann-Dick said: “The piano bench is the most worn seat in her apartment.”

POWER PERFORMERS

Bill Clinton, 42nd US President, played saxophone, conducted rehearsals of his college band and was concertmaster of its concert band

Sir Edward Heath, former Prime Minister, was an organ scholar at Balliol College, Oxford University and a talented pianist

Helmut Schmidt, the former German Chancellor, recorded piano concertos by Mozart and Bach

Benjamin Franklin, founding father of America, played several musical instruments including the violin, harp and guitar

Mahatma Gandhi, figurehead of Indian nationalism, played the concertina

Ignacy Paderewski, who became the Prime Minister of Poland after the First World War, was one of the greatest pianists ever

Henry VIII, the ideal Renaissance prince, was an accomplished musician. Apart from being able to play a number of instruments he was also a fine composer

Nero famously fiddled while Rome burned — except that he didn’t. It is possible that he played the lyre or sang, or both

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