Showtime

Who: Jan Lisiecki

What: Chopin's Second Piano Concerto

With: Boris Brott and the National Academy Orchestra

Where: St. Christopher's Anglican Church, 662 Guelph Line, Burlington

When: Saturday, June 28, at 7:30 p.m.

Cost: $25; senior $20; student $10

Call: 905-525-7664

Ever wonder what it's like to be a musical prodigy? You know, being able to accomplish things in your youth that old folks can't even imagine doing.

Look at Mozart. The kid was composing sonatas by the age of six, wrote his first symphony at the age of eight, and his first opera at age 12. And Mozart never went to school. But that didn't stop him from learning several languages.

But Mozart wasn't the only musical wunderkind. Beethoven could play by memory all 48 preludes and fugues in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier by his early teens. Decades later, an 11-year-old Camille Saint-Saens had committed to memory all of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas. And Felix Mendelssohn was already reading the fifth book of Euclid when he was 10. Wonder if he understood any of it?

Yes, prodigies have come and gone. After all, they, too, grow up into old folks. Well, except for Mozart and Mendelssohn, who died relatively young. Some prodigies have become well known, others not. Some have carved out musical careers, others abandoned music entirely.

Lately, there's been much talk about a Canadian prodigy named Jan Lisiecki, a 13-year-old pianist from Calgary, Alta., born to nonmusical, Polish immigrants.

Lisiecki has won a pile of awards including first prizes at the Canadian Music Competitions, the Mozart Competition, and this past May, the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition that netted him a performance in Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall.

He's performed at Rideau Hall for the Governor General, as well as at the 10th anniversary National Arts Centre Gala, on the same bill as Yo-Yo Ma, Pinchas Zukerman and others. And his compositions have won first prize at the CBC Mozart Variations Competition, and the 2006 National Finals of the Canada Music Week Writing Competition. Not bad, eh?

But how does Lisiecki stack up to those wunderkinds of the past?

Well, he's got photographic memory and absolute pitch. He speaks Polish, English, French and Spanish. Unlike Mozart, Lisiecki goes to school, but he's skipped four grades and is in Grade 11 at Western Canada High School where he's in the International Baccalaureate program.

Like Beethoven, Lisiecki loves Bach. "Bach is the foundation of all," Lisiecki said. "I love Bach."

But can he play all of Bach's 48, or all of Beethoven's 32?

"I haven't had too much of a chance to play many," Lisiecki said. "Competitions really limit your repertoire, unfortunately. But they're crucial in your development, and the possibilities they open are amazing. My repertoire is limited to what the competitions require. I learn a lot during the year, but I don't try to finish, let's say, all the Chopin Etudes, or all of the Well-Tempered Clavier. That's not my goal."

But ask Lisiecki about being a "prodigy," and he'll deflect any of the pressures that come with that word. "Right now, I'm just having a lot of fun with what I'm doing. So I'm not sure if I would classify me as a prodigy because I'm just a kid that works hard, and enjoys what he's doing. And so, I just have fun, pretty much."

This Saturday, Lisiecki will aim to have fun in his Brott Festival debut with Chopin's Second Piano Concerto, a work he'll perform at the Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound next month, and with Sinfonia Varsovia in Poland this August.

Leonard Turnevicius writes on classical music for The Spectator.

leonardturnevicius@hotmail.com