A 12-year-old boy in Shenzhen, a boomtown in the south China province of Guangdong, has been admitted to a German conservatory for his outstanding talents as a pianist.

Jia Zhichao, a student of the Shenzhen Schumann Piano School, will be the youngest ever to enter the Robert Schumann Higher School of Music, a noted conservatory established to commemorate the late composer.

His alma mater would finance his living expenses in Germany, said Huang Peiyu, Jia's present tutor and a former graduate of the German conservatory.

Jia, winner of the "special talent award" at a piano competition for children two months ago in Germany, impressed worldwide pianists with his wonderful performance and deep insight. He stood out among his worldwide rivals as a "young Mozart from China".

Jia started to take piano lessons at five years old and passed level 10, the highest level in China's piano proficiency testing system, when he was barely 10. Many children in Shenzhen have taken up piano since Li Yundi, an alumnus of a Shenzhen-based piano school, won the 14th Chopin International Competition in 2000. He was 18 then.
 
(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2004)