Blind music lover a step closer to Carols by Candlelight dream.

By Margaret Burin

Lilly Cascun has been completely blind since birth.

She was also born a lover of music.

“Lilly needed music when heading off to sleep,” her mum Lisa said.

“It was Andrea Bocelli that seemed to work for her.”

A keen pianist, violinist and member of the Australian Girls’ Choir, the nine-year-old dreams of a future like her biggest idol, who was also born visually impaired.

“My ultimate dream would be to sing at Carols [by Candlelight] and to become a famous musician like Andrea Bocelli … and to show people that if you have a disability it doesn’t matter,” she said.

“It’s just like people break their leg. You can still do whatever you want. Don’t give up and always follow your dreams.”

This week, she came one step closer to her goal.

As the stage for Vision Australia’s Carols By Candlelight was still being setup at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl, one of her other heroes, blind Australian opera singer Michael Leonardi met her for a private mentoring session.

The 26-year-old, who now lives in Milan, has performed for the Pavarotti family and the Pope.

Together they sang O Holy Night, the carol he will perform at the event this year.

“In 2014 when I first performed it, it wasn’t just singing it, it was feeling it,” he said.

“I really don’t see too much and I think anybody with similar problems with their eyesight experiences the same thing, what you don’t take in visually you take up in vibe, in feeling, in atmosphere. There’s a hyper-sensitivity to that.

“I kind of embrace it.”

He said he saw the same qualities in Lilly.

“She can feel the situation, she’s super enthusiastic because she can feel the energy,” Leonardi said.

“You may suffer in a visual way where other kids don’t and other people maybe don’t, [but] it opens up this other path for you because you can actually hone that sensitivity into something else.”

Before leaving he took Lilly onto the stage catwalk that he first performed on two years ago.

The seats may have be empty, and she may not have been able to see what was in front of her, but Leonardi told her to take it in. And she did.

“I made the sound people my crowd and it was really amazing to be able to do that,” Lilly said.

“It was really special to go on stage … I was just like, ‘OK, so this may be my future’.”

This post originally appeared on ABC News.