My son’s skills are music to my ears
My Son, leo, has not only just passed his associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) grade-eight piano exam, but he did so with a high distinction mark of 144 out of 150 — at the age of only seven. you might have seen leo on the current series of Britain’s got Talent. he also hopes to pass the associate of Trinity College london (ATCL) exam in the next few months. The youngest person to pass it so far was nine. My Manchester mini-maestro played the famously fast and fiendishly difficult piano piece The Flight of The Bumble-Bee on Britain’s got Talent — and did so blindfolded. The audience and all four judges were blown away by his flawless performance, with Simon Cowell dubbing him a ‘little superhero’ and ‘cute but unreal’. It’s hard to believe leo learned his piece after barely two weeks’ practice. he’s so small, his feet dangle off the piano stool, waving loftily above the pedals. he has also broken the world record as the fastest piano learner in the world. having started to play at six years old, within a month he passed the ABRSM grade- one exam, again with distinction. he was immediately submitted for the grade-two test and gained another distinction. at this point, his talent was spotted by Chetham’s School of Music’s piano teacher Simon Bottomley, and leo was moved on to learning grade-six pieces. leo subsequently won three gold medals in his first piano competition in Southport in october 2014, in the under-ten and under-14 categories, as well as the open group, which included adults, scoring as high as 92. a month later, leo flew to Poland to take part in the International Chopin Festival and became the youngest winner of the group II Repertoire, competing against advanced music school students from across europe. When leo passed his grade-eight piano in March, he was the youngest-ever to achieve distinction in the exam. as a very enthusiastic, happy boy, leo thrives on learning. he loves everything from reading, writing, drawing, art, music and sports to engineering and computer coding. his talents are by no means confined to the academic, however; he is also the youngest member of the Manchester Swimming Team, joining it at six. leo moved to the UK only at the age of four, at which time he spoke no english. less than two years later, he went from learning his ABC to reading hundreds of english books, including all seven harry Potter novels. now he is busy preparing for his atcl piano performance exam — a degree-equivalent diploma — which he will sit in august. If leo can pass it this year, he will become the youngest ever to do so, a startling two years younger than the current world record. We even hope he will achieve a distinction yet again.
YULAN YANG, Manchester.