At first glance, an Alec van Cajadurian might come across as your typical Encino kindergartener. He loves playing video games, trying out cameras, and running around his parents’ houses with his younger brother and his family’s Labradoodle Chai.
But there’s far more to see at a 5 year old than to make eye contact. Or ears.
“He loves to do five-year-olds,” said his father, Joe Kajadurian. “But he’s sitting on the piano and you’re like, ‘Amazing. This is pretty special.’ ”
Alec gives what music teachers call “perfect pitch.”
His mother, Diana Sanders, explains anything he hears, and he fully identifies it.
“He can sing and play it,” the child’s mom said.
Joe and Diana discovered this when Alec was a toddler. He listened to the notes, smeared it on the piano, almost instinctively finding the correct key.
Within a year or so he had been learning and playing complex classical music on the piano without even reading sheet music. By the age of five, he had won first prizes at three international music competitions. One of them took place in New York City.
After visiting there to see his first symphony, he declared to his parents that one of his goals in his life was a play piano at Carnegie Hall. In a few months, he plans to perform at a well-known venue and practices every day for his debut, so his dreams will come true.
A few weeks before Carnegie’s gig, he may have the opportunity to tickle ivory at LA’s Disney concert hall in downtown LA and meet Gustavo Dudamel, director of the LA Philharmonic Orchestra. That’s because Alec is not only immersed in classical music, but his mother refuses to shorten his hair as a tribute to one of his personal musical heroes, Dudamel.
“I feel better,” the pint-sized pianist said when asked why he loves to play the piano. “It feels calm.”
The young musician is scheduled to perform at Disney Concert Hall on July 1, 2025 and at Carnegie Hall on July 20, 2025.
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