Boy, 11, earns a degree in music
Trained since age three, he’s youngest ever
LONDON — An 11-year-old boy trained by his concert pianist mother has become the youngest person in the world to receive a degree in music.
Curtis Elton started learning piano at the age of three and could read music by the time he was four.
He was the youngest person in the world to pass a piano exam equivalent to the first year of university when he was nine. And two years on he has completed the course and been awarded an LTCL diploma from Trinity College, London, equivalent to an undergraduate degree.
Curtis practised for more than two hours a day to perfect a challenging 37-minute program — mostly from memory. He played Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E flat, Mozart’s Sonata in F, two Etudes by Chopin and April by John Ireland.
The chief examiner said Curtis performed the Mozart with “much virtuosity” and said his fingers moved “nimbly and easily” in one of the Chopin pieces.
Curtis says he wants to be as successful as pianists Liberace, Lang Lang and Elton John.
“I would like to play all over the world,” he said. “I would like to play at the Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Royal Opera House.”