Ten-Year-Old Piano Prodigy Leads Orchestra

Playing at Argentina’s famed Teatro Colon would be a nerve-wracking experience for any musician.

But at just 10 years old, Natasha Binder, the night’s featured pianist, took to the moment like a pro on Thursday.

It is, after all, not her first concert.

Binder made her debut in 2008 in London, playing Mozart.

On Thursday she performed the Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op.16, by the 19th-century composer Edvard Grieg.

Binder belongs to a family of Argentine musicians, but was born in Brussels, Belgium.

Her family made Binder wait until she was three, before was allowed to climb onto the piano seat to start her career. But she was listening for a long time before that.

[Natasha Binder, Piano Prodigy]:
„There is music in our house all the time. So I imagine that even when I was in the womb I was listening.”

With her small frame crouched over the piano as her fingers fly over the keys, Binder has to shimmy her way up and down her bench to reach the length of the instrument.

And it is not just the classics she is interested in.

[Natasha Binder, Piano Prodigy]:
„I am open to lots of things–I live in an open world. I’m not only interested in classical music and nobody tells me–my grandmother or my teacher–that I am only allowed to listen to what I play.“

At the Teatro Colon, Binder brought to life the concerto that took Grieg his entire life to compose, and the crowd roared.

Where to next for such a star?

Unlike many child prodigy musicians, Binder is not headed for Las Vegas. Her next performance will be in October at La Monnaie Theater in Brussels.

Foto: NTD