Youngest person in the world to get music degree plays a Yamaha piano

via The Telegraph
An 11-year-old boy has become the youngest person in the world to get a degree in music.

Child prodigy Curtis Elton started learning the 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.

Two years on, he has completed the course and been awarded an LTCL diploma from Trinity College London. The qualification – a Licentiate of Trinity College London – is equivalent to the final year of an undergraduate degree.

Curtis practiced for more than two hours a day to perfect a challenging 37-minute programme, mostly from memory, for examiners.

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, who has appeared on Channel 4’s Child Genius programme, also had to write a 1,000-word programme about the pieces and histories of the composers.

Mother Hayley – herself a 41-year-old concert pianist – said she trained Curtis for the exam “like a marathon runner” by feeding him plates of pasta to give him energy.

Curtis, who is home-schooled and practises on his own white Yamaha grand piano, said: “I was a bit nervous at the beginning of the exam but when I started playing I wasn’t nervous anymore.

“I practice for about two hours a day but before the exam I probably did more than that to perfect the pieces.”

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