The artist at 10

She writes, she composes and her quick fingers make easy work of Beethoven and Mozart. And she hasn't even started fifth grade yet.

By LOGAN D. MABE

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 30, 2000

NORTHDALE -- Eva Dou throws lightning bolts with her dancing hands. Thunder booms from her urgent touch on the keyboard. The gentle patter of falling rain tinkles from her feathery fingers.

The composition she's playing, called Works of Nature, is alternately foreboding and fancy free, and only a fortunate few classical music fans have ever heard it performed.

That's because it didn't exist before 10-year-old Eva composed it at the start of her summer vacation just a few weeks ago.

Eva, who'll be a fifth-grader at Claywell Elementary in the fall, is an award-winning pianist who makes fast work of Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. But now, Eva has turned her attention to creating music based on her experiences in the world around her.

Works of Nature, for instance, was inspired by Florida's turbulent rainy season.

"The next piece I write is going to be about the ocean, about the wondrous things around us in nature like the tropical storms," Eva said.

Eva's first public performance of Works of Nature came Saturday when she mesmerized about 75 residents of the Lakeshore Villa Retirement Community in Tampa. The 30-minute performance, which included the Sonata in C Major by Mozart and Fur Elise by Beethoven, brought the crowd to its feet in a standing ovation.

"To watch her create music, she actually becomes part of the music," said Claywell principal Glenda Midili, who also attended the performance.

"She almost dances in concert with the music that she plays. It's more than just being a child prodigy, because she clearly loves it. And she sees it as a gift that she gives other people."

"If I can make them a little happier, that makes me happy, too," Eva said.

Lakeshore Villa activities director Bettye Ussery said she invited Eva after seeing a newspaper write-up on her after a big music competition last year.

In November, Eva won second place in the Florida Orchestra's 12th Annual Young Artists Competition despite being the youngest pianist there.

Eva is an accomplished student at Claywell, where she was a member of the Battle of the Books team that won the county reading contest. And she writes pretty well, too, scoring a perfect 6.0 on the annual Florida Writes test.

This summer, Eva is taking a break from academics and spends two hours a day, four days a week working on her competitive swimming skills at the University of South Florida.

Eva and her violin-playing little brother, 5-year-old Dan, were born in Boston. But Eva's dad, Ping Dou, a cancer researcher at the Moffitt Cancer Center, kept the family on the move, following transfers to different medical centers.

The family lived in Pittsburgh until two years ago, when the Moffitt job brought them to Northdale. The constant in Eva's life, since she was 4, has been the Yamaha piano that anchors their living room.

In conversation, Eva is polite and straightforward, rarely shy in discussing her passions. She sits up straight, listens to questions with the attention of a Jeopardy contestant and answers in a firm manner free of "uhhs" and "wells" and "you knows."

But when she sits at the piano, Eva becomes someone else entirely.

"When I play music, I try to feel the music and feel what the composer felt when he was composing it," Eva said. At the piano, her hands flutter and then fire over the keys, her ponytail flies as she whips her head at crucial musical moments, and her eyes close during quiet interludes.

"People always say she's such a sweet little girl and they think they're going to hear something dainty," said Eva's mom, Anna Wang. "But then they hear this piece full of passion and power. It's pretty deceiving."

Eva said she might like to try to be a concert pianist someday when she's grown, but she's not locking into anything at the age of 10.

"I think I might pursue music as a career, but I'm not sure yet," Eva said. "When I grow up I might choose something else. Whatever I do, music will always be a big part of my life."

"She's just a gift to the world, is all I can say," Midili said. "And her parents have done a great job maintaining her childhood while fostering her talent. They're allowing her to be a child while she develops all these skills."

To reach Logan D. Mabe, call 226-3464 or e-mail him at mabe@sptimes.com.

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