Tiny pianist wins big competition

Because he's just 10 years old, Alexander Lu's legs are too short to reach the piano pedals, and his hands are too small to play the chords in many classical music pieces. But he does have a secret weapon: his eyebrows.

When he plays, Alex gets so wrapped up in the music that his whole body moves expressively with the piece, weaving and swaying. His eyebrows shoot up and down as he draws out a tender chord or punctuates a dramatic moment.

The Redmond fourth-grader's interpretation was so expressive, and his playing so accomplished for someone so young, that he wowed the judges of a KING-FM young artists competition open to students in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. His playing shone among 169 other top students in the area — most of the others in high school.

The judges were "unanimous — he was the one," said Kathy Fahlman Dewalt, executive producer of the KING-FM "Ten Grands Young Artists" awards competition. "He has an unbelievable talent."

"We were very impressed by his musicality," said Bryan Lowe, the program director for Classical KING-FM. Among the judges, "his name was on everybody's list."

"It's like DNA in some people, music is," said R&B singer Bernadette Bascom, who has heard Alex play. "He's not just taught, he has music in his spirit."

That prodigious skill hides behind the most unassuming of students. Alex, who goes to the private Bellevue Children's Academy, has a cherubic face and is completely charming.

But when he sits down at the piano, he can be happy or sad, playful or mournful as the mood requires. And fast, fast, fast, with fingers that fly up and down the keyboard.

"He seems to have an imagination about the music that I really love," said his teacher, Peter Mack, a professor of piano performance at Cornish College of the Arts. "He will do things that will make the music come alive for the members of an audience. That's a real gift."

Added Mack: "I always say he's the student with the best eyebrows."

For his winning performance in the "Ten Grands" competition, Alex played "The Cat and the Mouse" by Aaron Copland. It's an advanced piece, with complex patterns and a disjointed style that makes full use of the keyboard, from the tiny tinkling notes at the top to deep notes at the low end of the piano, and it as impressive to watch Alex's fingers race up and down the keys as it is to hear him.

Alex draws on an elaborate back story he's created to help him interpret the music.

"It's when the mouse comes out of its hole and then the cat starts chasing him, and then after a while the mouse races to the hole," Alex explains. "At 3 o'clock in the morning, the mouse comes out again, and when he notices the cat is gone, he starts dancing. And then the cat suddenly comes out of nowhere, and the mouse had to play dead in order to escape."

Neither of his parents play the piano, but Alex was introduced to the instrument when his maternal grandmother, Ting Yuan Zhou, came from China to look after him and his brother, Chris, when they were little. His grandmother asked his parents, Mei and Haiyuan Lu, to buy a piano so she could play for them from time to time.

Mei Lu said her mother took lessons as a child, but never studied formally — "Mom only plays for fun." She thought the piano would keep her entertained and help soothe the boys when they were infants.

Chris, who is four years older, started taking lessons first, when he was 5 years old. Earlier this year, he was one of seven national finalists in the junior division of the Music Teachers National Association, after first winning the Washington state competition. It is the top musical competition for young pianists in the country, Mack said.

When Alex began playing at 5 ½, it took him only three months to master the same music it took his brother two years to learn. His parents quickly realized they needed a more advanced teacher to handle both their sons' talents.

When he turned 8, Alex became the youngest winner of the Northwest Chopin Festival. At 9, he won several awards in the Seattle International Piano Competition, including the gold medal, best performance of Chopin Étude and the audience award.

It's very unusual to have two prodigies in the same family, said Mack, who only teaches about 20 students in grades K-12 in addition to teaching at the college level, and is known as one of the top piano teachers in the area.

Mack describes Alex's playing as "more out there — he's not as refined" as his brother. "He's more communicative, but not as beautifully polished."

Mack encourages his students to enter competitions, and when Alex turns 11, the number of competitions he can enter will grow. But Mack said the number of people who make a career of playing the piano is so small that he encourages parents and students to instead think of piano lessons as a great training ground for the mind — one that will help them with whatever career they eventually choose.

Both boys practice for up to two hours a day, and often more on weekends. Their parents "come to the lessons, and they pay attention," Mack said. "They are really smart musical people ... they know what is the difference between good, very good and excellent."

At the age of 10, Alex cannot yet reach notes an octave apart with his right hand. After the year 1750, composers wrote a lot of music that contained octaves, "so if you cannot reach with comfort, it's a big handicap," Mack said.

And his parents are hoping that his legs will be long enough by summer to reach the pedals without a pedal-extension device. When he plays, Alex takes his shoes off to control the pedal-extension box, which fits over the pedals and helps young players reach.

On May 21, Alex and the other nine finalists will perform at Benaroya Hall in a special Ten Grands event. They'll perform a special arrangement of "Awakening," composed by Michael Allen Harrison, the founder of Ten Grands and the Snowman Foundation, a nonprofit that raises money to promote the musical arts for K-12 students in Washington state.

Knowing he'll have to play in his stocking feet, his mom is plotting his outfit down to his socks. "Black ones," she said, laughing.

Alex says he likes playing the piano as a hobby, but aims to become an architect or an astronomer one day.

He gets nervous about playing in front of groups of people, but he is learning to conquer the jitters.

"Once I get to the piano my nervousness goes away, and I start listening to my music," Alex said. "And when I'm finished, I'm usually very happy."

Katherine Long: 206-464-2219 or klong@seattletimes.com