STANFORD - Kit Anderson is 10, looking a bit small for his age. His first
appearance on the stage of Dinkelspiel Auditorium this afternoon - with
a red bow tie and black suspenders, walking stiffly - brought back
memories of a hundred school recitals.

He climbed up on a booster-chair of a bench, his feet touching the top
of a foot-high pedal extension, and he launched into Bach's French Suite
No. 6, in the same straightforward, no-nonsense manner witnessed last
night at Alicia de Larrocha's San Francisco farewell concert, at age 79.
Quite a range in less than 24 hours.

There was no laughter in the hall, so it couldn't have stopped "as he
sat down to play the piano." Just about everybody in the audience - other
than the many very young and consistently noisy children - was aware of
Kit's amazing history: the Chinese-American youngster from Anaheim (raised
and managed by his mother, the father is nowhere in evidence) started
playing the piano and composing music just out of toddler age, finished
high school at age 7, he is now a college sophomore, studying mathematics,
biology, chemistry and physics. He speaks five languages and declines
to accept the obvious description of "prodigy" because he considers it
"a very vague term."

And yet, in a few minutes after the concert began, as the Sarabande
unfolded beautifully, all the miniature-Elephant-Man curiosity, the hype
and the obvious doubt fell away. Kit is a genuine article, an incredibly
gifted child, a musician, not a trained-monkey-little-pianist (bow tie
and all), and the mind reels when contemplating how far he may go.

Consider, beyond the opening Bach, the boldness, appropriateness and
generosity of the program he put together (he selects the music himself
and writes all the program notes):

Beethoven's Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 14, No. 2
Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances
Mozart's Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 333

And four of his own compositions.

How well does he play? For starters, it was a two-hour-long concert
without the use of score, without a single memory lapse. The performance
ranged from the adequate to the startlingly brilliant. The only possible
comparison I have for this strange and wondrous event is Sarah Chang's
performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto at age 9. She had better
mastery of the whole work than Kit showed today, but his virtuosity at
times exceeded hers.  Considering the size of his hands, it's a miracle
that he can play this well, physically.

Much more important, however, is Kit's sense of the music beyond the
notes and his ability to express it. In that, all-important regard that
shifts this weird precocity into the "very vague" domain of a true
prodigy, Kit and Sarah share that early gift that started careers such
as Menuhin's, Yo-Yo Ma's, Galway's, numerous others.

There were many high points today between that singing Sarabande and the
program-closing "Five Elements," the best of Kit's works presented at
this concert.

In the Beethoven, Kit showed remarkable focus and concentration: a very
loud cell phone went off just before the music enters into a tough,
turbulent passage, and the youngster got it exactly right, as if the
auditorium was not still buzzing in the aftermath of the wireless
interruption. The arpeggios at the beginning, the authoritative final
notes of the second movement, the playful trills of the last movement
were all splendid.  Kit's syncopation in the Bartok, his instant adjustment
to a pedal extension come loose in the Mozart were striking accomplishments.

Of his own music, there was the minute-long "Homage to Bach," and then
"A Thunderstorm" - described by Kit as "my first atonal piece... in
two-part binary form with a coda, the first part being tense and mysterious,
and the second being more welcoming" - his most original work presented
here.

Stanford's Beet Quartet had a rather rough time premiering two movements
from Kit's String Quartet No. 1. It is a pleasant piece, a Brahms homage
in fact, if not in name. (The candid artist revealed in his program notes
that he had originally meant to depict the four seasons, but as the
sequence of movements failed to reflect the passage of time, "I eventually
decided to change the title to something as plain as String Quartet No.
1 in B-flat Major." A story not as dramatic as the one about the "Eroica,"
but at least true.)

Kit wrote "Four Elements" in 1998-99, meaning that he was a Mozartean
six-year-old when he started work on it. It was also a six-year-old who
came up with the idea of writing a work in the first five church modes,
at their original pitch levels: Dorian (on D), Phrygian (on D), Lydian
(on F) - Kit emphasizing its neoclassical nature and "allusion to 18th
century-like ornamentation and melodic patterns" - Mixolydian (on G) and
Aeolian (on A).  Sounds too academic? The music didn't.

It may be a small thing against the enormity of the young man's other
accomplishments, but I was very much taken by Kit's mature, masterful
communication with the audience. Using rather subtle, but effective body
language, he prevented applause between movements, clearly signaled when
a piece was finished. Of all the grownup musicians I know, very few have
this ability to "conduct" a concert.

Among Kit's announced plans (and who knows what else may be going on in
that amazing mind): learning both books of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier,"
and performing all Mozart piano concertos by 2006, the 250th birthday
of the composer. For Kit, it will be his 14th.

There is also good news on the chicken-music front. One of Kit's earliest
composition was the "Chicken Sonata," almost five years ago, and he
followed that with "Chickens in Spring Time: Theme and 46 Variations."
He continues to raise chickens, so in the future, once he gets through
mastering orchestration, a Chicken Symphony may well be in the cards.

Janos Gereben/SF
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