Someone You Should Know: Piano Prodigy
CHICAGO (CBS) -- He's already wowing audiences, and he's only 8 years old.
Third-grader Joshua Mhoon is still becoming acquainted with the piano, but you would never know it when you hear his music.
CBS 2's Harry Porterfield says he's someone you should know.
Joshua plunges himself into the music he projects with the intensity of a professional. But that is somewhat deceiving. The youngster has been playing the piano for only 15 months with no prior knowledge of music.
His teacher is Harry Steckman of Oak Park.
"He seemed to move faster and faster and faster. The more I gave him, the more he absorbed the material and the faster he learned it," Steckman says.
With less than two years experience as a musician, Joshua won a prestigious award -- first place at the Grandquist Music Competition held in Geneva -- and honors at a National Junior Music Festival last March.
"I actually did it too fast but I still won," he says.
A times, he seems to take his musical ability rather casually. When it comes to practice, he'd like a little time off.
"I kind of just want to do it like when I'm in the mood, but my dad makes me do it," Joshua says. "I used to ask for him for days off but now I don't. He just tells me when to practice."
Even at his age and with his experience, he is already earning money playing the piano -- $150 dollars recently at a day care graduation.
"He just started playing and I just sat there with my mouth open wondering who is this person sitting in front of me playing? He had never played before," father Jun Mhoon says.
So will Joshua become classical stage virtuoso some day?
"I'm not going to be a professional, but I'm still going to do concerts sometimes, like at Ravinia Park," he says.
