Jan. 17, 2008 — Used to playing before packed crowds at music festivals, concerts and benefits all over the world, piano prodigy Marc Yu hit the stage Friday at the Prior-Jolleck Hall for an audience more his own age — fourth graders hailing from Leonard Dober Elementary and Antilles schools.
Yu, who has played everywhere from Las Vegas to Italy, has been tickling the ivories ever since he was two years old. Now, at the tender age of 10, he plans this year to perform with his idol — renowned concert pianist Lang Lang — in Austria and in New York City at Carnegie Hall.
But for the past two days, Yu — along with his parents Chloe Yu and Christopher Yo — has been holding hour-long workshops for students across the island and preparing for his concert, scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday night at the Prior-Jolleck Hall at Antilles School. More than 200 students at Bertha C. Boschulte turned out Thursday for Yu's workshop, while dozens more watched him in awe Friday, pounding out Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.
"Music is like a game — so why do we like games?" Yu asked the excited group of students. "Because they're fun — that's the major reason. I like classical music because one, it's a challenge to master it. Two, because there can be many things going on at the same time. Three, because there can be many moods going on at the same time and four, because there can be many different extremes — the music can be really loud or really soft."
The students' shouts of "awww, he's so cute," died down as soon as Yu sat down at the piano. Taking a breath, his fingers began to dance quickly over the keys. He gestured dramatically, at certain spots, like a conductor before a symphony orchestra, and arched or extended his back when he hit certain notes. Framed by a dark black curtain, the room brushed with dim lights, Yu looked and sounded like something out of a metropolitan opera house — and when he finished each piece, the applause that followed him was just as loud.
"When I play, I usually think of a story that goes with the music," Yu said after the workshop. "When I was playing the Tchaikovsky piece, I thought about the transient nature of the things we have in our lives — wars, for example, and the U.S. troops that are coming and going, dying in Iraq."
While he definitely sounds older than he looks, Yu interacted easily with the other students Friday, talking to them afterward in a question and answer segment about his practice and school schedule, playing video games and what he likes to watch on television (much of the Nickelodeon cartoon lineup). Practice sessions on the piano can run up to eight hours, mostly on the weekends, balanced with home schooling and trips around the world for benefits, concerts or lessons with his piano teacher, who works between California and Shanghai.
"Sometimes I get sad having to go away from home, but I love traveling and I love visiting new places," Yu said Friday. "If I weren't home-schooled then I would not have been able to come to St. Thomas, and St. Thomas is such a beautiful place. I love the water — it's so clean, not like in L.A. (Los Angeles) where it's polluted."
Yu's dad also took the stage with his son Friday, performing two short pieces on the cello.
"You'll have to pardon my dad — he's just an amateur," Yu joked, before the two began their session.
The students laughed, applauded and whistled repeatedly after each piece, saying, "Wow, that's so cool." Dozens of hands waved furiously during the question and answer session, as student after student queried Yu on his memorization techniques, his musical inspirations and aspirations, and his favorite kinds of music.
"I don't think I'm going to be playing anything but classical music for a while, because that's 300 years of music that I have to learn," Yu said.
The trip from Dober was organized by Skal International members Mary Gleason and Lisa Hamilton — both major players in the local tourism industry.
"Skal is an invitational group of travel professionals and about five years ago, we adopted a kindergarten class at Dober Elementary, the primary purpose of which was to introduce the youngsters to tourism and the kind of things we have down here," Gleason explained. "We've taken them to Coral World, on the Atlantis Submarine, to the Holiday Inn in hopes of educating them a little about tourism, and last year, we worked closely with Antilles on a mentoring program where sixth, seventh and eighth graders with Antilles worked with our kids — who were by then in the third grade — to help them with their English and Math."
Antilles School community liaison Joan Amerling worked alongside Gleason and Hamilton during the mentoring initiative and invited the duo's adopted students — now fourth graders — to Yu's Friday workshop, Gleason said.
"This was wonderful," she said. "Certainly we hope that this program, and activities like this, make the students want to stay in school, and teach them more about the hotel and tourism industry and the career options there."
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