KOREA:The piano-playing of a child prodigy is stunning audiences, writes David McNeillin Tokyo
WHEN DIMINUTIVE South Korean star Yoo Ye-eun sits in front of a grand piano and plays Für Elise, listeners are often moved to tears - once the shock of hearing her play Beethoven at all begins to fade. First, though, the five-year-old has to be helped up on to her piano seat by an adult.
Still in nursery school and blind since birth, the tiny prodigy has stunned audiences in South Korea with a repertoire that includes Mozart, Chopin and the latest pop hits. To cap her performances, she plays along with local singers after hearing their songs for the very first time.
"How can this be?" asked the wide-eyed host of South Korean talent show Star King, which introduced her to TV audiences last year. "It's unbelievable." The show earned Ye-eun her first prize money - one million won - and a nickname that has stuck: "The five-year-old genius Mozart."
"She can play the piano after listening to a song once," her adoptive mother Park Jung Soon explained. Park says she discovered her daughter's talent two years ago when she was singing a pop tune and Ye-eun began playing along on a borrowed piano.
"She has perfect pitch even though she has never learned to play. We never taught her."
Until recently a well-kept secret, Ye-eun's fame is beginning to spread, thanks to the internet. A clip of her performance on Star Kinguploaded on to website Pandora TV has earned over 27 million hits, and another two million on YouTube.
She performed in Los Angeles last September and a Tokyo TV station sent an invitation across the Japan Sea. She even has a sponsor - the boss of a Dubai construction company who saw the Star Kingclip and said he "wants to invest in her future". Last week, she performed Chopin in front of Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong.
Ye-eun has had her fair share of tragedy. Abandoned at birth, she was adopted by wheelchair-bound Yoo Chang Joo, who was injured in a car accident, and his wife, Park Jung Soon. The pair heard about the blind child in 2003 and decided to take her in. "We never felt it was difficult to bring her up," they told South Korean magazine Woman Donga.
Park Jung Soon took her daughter onto Star Kingbecause she wanted "to play for more people", but nobody could have predicted the impact. As she was introduced, a squeaky voice could be heard asking "Where's the piano?" and the camera panned down to reveal the doll-like Ye-eun searching for her seat.
Audience members, including the South Korean boy band Super Junior, were reduced to tears as Ye-eun's stubby fingers groped for the right keys and she sang the Christian-tinged You Were Born to be Loved.
A star was born, but Park, who only reluctantly went along with her daughter's first TV appearance, initially resisted. "We will end it here and let this be a beautiful memory. We are very grateful to Star King," she told the disappointed audience. News of the performance spread, however, and offers of money and help flooded in.
Doctors offered, but failed, to restore her sight. In May, she was back on Star Kingsinging You Raise me Upwith British prodigy Connie Talbot.
Ye-eun practises every day on a piano donated by the Super Junior boys while listening to music on the internet. Asked by Reuters what she wants to be when she grows up she replied: "A pianist. A great pianist."