American piano prodigy George Li

The idea of a classical music prodigy is somewhat humorous, carrying cynicism and visions of pale, tortured youths delivering woefully soulless renditions of stereotypical compositions.

In the case of 15-year-old American master pianist George Li, "child prodigy" just doesn't fit. On a warm spring afternoon in Prague hours before he was set to play Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with the New England Conservatory Young Philharmonic Orchestra as part of their tour from Prague to Vienna, Li sat down to talk with The Prague Post.

At about 5 feet tall with a round baby face, Li smiles a lot, shifts his weight and ducks his head when he talks about his life in a soft voice that has not yet started to deepen. He isn't shy, or browbeaten and weighed down by the expectations of his superiors, but Li doesn't seem much interested in small talk and questions about his hobbies, which he answers more to satisfy than to expound on anything.

"I like baseball - and basketball, football and soccer," he said hesitantly.

As for school subjects, Li prefers science and math, and he likes to read newspapers, magazines, novels and "just about anything."

"During school, I talk with my classmates and friends. They talk about, like, pop music, and I just listen a little bit," he said.

But when asked to discuss his music, Li's face lights up, he untwists his wrung hands and without faltering launches into descriptions that are earnest yet tinged with awe - like someone on the cusp of comprehending something amazing who can't quite find the words to describe it.

"Whenever I go through a piece, I try to bring what I feel it is the composer wanted to say about it, and I try to dig out the emotions just from my experiences, from my heart," he said. "Like a thunderstorm: If you have a thunderstorm, you have all these clashes and tensions, but also when you think about a thunderstorm, you might think of anger or sadness or passion maybe. So I just try to bring that out."

Li's performance illustrates this approach. In the Dvo?ák Hall of Rudolfinum, Li looks tiny as he crosses the stage to his enormous black piano. He sits, pushes back his coattails and is gone - off to someplace far away, where Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 is not merely notes on a page (which, incidentally, Li doesn't use), but a beautiful and epic story that ranges from sweet to sad, joyous hope to playful whimsy.

Sweat begins to drip down Li's face midway through the performance, but his exertion is imperceptible in the grace with which his fingers fly across the keyboard and then suddenly stop to play a single note in a delicate pianissimo. As the piece draws to a close and the conductor's arms fall, Li looks up and smiles sidelong, like he's just awoke from a trance.

"When I was younger, I was more concentrated on technique, but as I got older, I realized why I love music - because it brings out all these emotions - and from then on, I tried to bring emotions into my music," Li said. "And then, after some concerts, people came up to me, telling me how my music changed their lives. ... From then on, I decided that that's the way to do it."

Benjamin Zander, conductor for the Young Philharmonic, the Boston Philharmonic and one of Li's many teachers, sees something in the teen that goes beyond the level of protégé.

"There are lots of people who play with fabulous fingers, who can play all the notes and wow you with their virtuosity," Zander said. "I have found that George has what nobody else of his age has and that I haven't heard except with one or two very famous people in the past: an enormous musical subtlety. It's the musical mind of a grown up in the body and the hands of a child, so when you hear him play, you are not actually listening to a child at all."

Li has been playing the piano since he was just 4-and-a-half years old and started performing in showcases at the age of 5. He now attends Walnut Hill School in Lexington and studies at the New England Conservatory with Wha Kyung Byun, practicing between four and seven hours a day.

Li's first official performance came at the age of 9 at Boston's Steinway Hall, and since then, his performance repertoire has grown to include solos at Carnegie Hall and engagements with prestigious youth orchestras in the United States and abroad. At the ages of 6 and 7, Li won first prize at the Minnesota Music Teachers Association Piano Competition, and most recently, he won the Young Concert Artist Competition for 16- to 32-year-olds, although he was a year too young.

Li tours a few times a year, and said it can be tiring, but only because he worries his physical fatigue won't allow him to give his audience everything he wants.

"Sometimes I get frustrated, because I can't do what I want to do to make the sound that I want to make," he said.

At those times, he looks to composers and pianists, as well as personal heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy.

"I just think about all these other great people who struggled, but in the end conquered and became really great," Li said. "So I remind myself that it's just one of those small barriers, and this is just nothing compared to what other people have done."

Cat Contiguglia can be reached at
ccontiguglia@praguepost.com