DATE: Thursday, May 1, 1997                 TAG: 9705010784

SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS         PAGE: 12   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY CAROLE O'KEEFE, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:  107 lines

PIANO PRODIGY: 15-YEAR-OLD SHOWS PROMISE OF BRIGHT FUTURE

MARIYA ANDO, a 15-year-old honor student at Norfolk Collegiate, wants most of all to become a concert pianist. And she is well on her way to achieving that goal, local experts say.

She is the only piano student in the Tidewater area to ever win first place in the Music Teachers National Association (Baldwin) Junior High School Piano Competition, a feat she achieved last year.

And on April 20, she gave a recital, lasting more than an hour, at the Chrysler Museum of Art Theater, an unusual and prestigious venue for so young a music student. Nearly every seat was full.

She also auditioned before the Virginia Symphony Orchestra awhile back and received high marks. But despite her accomplishments, she has very little to say about herself.

Mariya answers most questions with few words but is always smiling and polite. To the question, ``Do you consider yourself a professional piano player?'' she answers, ``I don't know,'' and shyly looks at her mother, Reiko Ando. ``I have been paid,'' she says.

When asked how she felt about her performance at Chrysler Museum, she said simply, ``I am very happy about it.''

So is Merlita Ramirez, who attended the recital with her daughters, Marjorie, 9, and Rachel, 5. At the event she said would like for them to take piano lessons and wanted to expose them to Mariya's recital.

``This is the best time to assess for themselves if they really want to study,'' she said.

The girls jumped up and down and said, ``We do! We do!''

Rose Marie Ward, an administrator in the Norfolk public schools who also attended, said one of the things that touched her most about Mariya's playing was that she memorized it all.

When Mariya played Chopin, ``and I'm a Chopin enthusiast,'' Ward said, ``I could just feel myself rolling on the water.''

Mariya's teacher, Teresa Compos-Falk, of Hampton, said Mariya learns very quickly. ``She can crank out 40, 50, 60 pages of music in less than two or three weeks and it's memorized and up to tempo.''

Compos-Falk, a Juilliard School of Music graduate, said with this caliber student, ``who is capable of going to any of the five big conservatoies, it is especially wonderful to teach.''

Burt Whitt, a lawyer for Mitsubishi Chemical America Inc., in Chesapeake, where Mariya's father has worked since they came to this country in 1991, found Mariya's talent ``amazing and a pleasure. It's hard to not love this music,'' he said.

The concert, and the reception that followed, were sponsored by Mitsubishi.

Mariya's talent has been underpinned by an entire life exposed to music. When she was an infant in Yokohama, Japan, her mother placed Mariya across her lap as she played piano and sang children's songs to her.

When Mariya was 4, she began piano lessons. ``For the first six months, or so, her teacher never told or taught her to play on the keyboard,'' her mother said. ``But two weeks after starting the lessons, just to learn notes and theory, she could play any music she knew, hundreds of tunes.''

When she finally got her hands on the keys at the lesson, she was ready to learn. She's been playing ever since. ``Music was always around us,'' her mother said.

Mariya's brother, Kozo, now in college, studied violin but chose to concentrate on academics.

Mariya and her family live in a well-appointed brick ranch in an affluent neighborhood near the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

Mariya has her own studio with two pianos, a grand and an upright. The room is well supplied with sheet music and brightly lighted with two windows and a French door off the foyer.

Mariya says she always looks forward to lessons, practice and performing. One of her goals is to attend Juilliard in New York.< She says she loves playing piano and wants to make a career of it. Rather than hating practice as many young people do, she says she looks forward to it every day.

When asked, ``Do you have boyfriends?'' she said she is too busy and not interested for the time being.

Most of Mariya's time is spent going to school and playing piano. Sometimes she misses school to practice for big events, such as her recent recital at Chrysler Museum.

On school days, she usually practices for two to three hours, depending on school work and other occasional activities. On weekends, she practices, ``whenever she is awake,'' Reiko Ando said with a laugh. Actually, she practices five to six hours on the average each weekend day, her mother said.

Her teacher, Compos-Falk, calls Mariya a very sensitive musician. ``She draws people to listen in a more powerful and persuasive way, not usually indicative of a 15-year-old girl. Her talent seems to be God-given,'' she said.

To win the Music Teacher National Association award, Mariya had to compete at several levels. In fall 1995, she won on the state level. Then in January 1996, she won in the Southern division, which includes nine states.

She entered the national competition, held in Kansas City, Mo., in spring 1996.

``It was quite a lengthy procedure,'' Compos-Falk said. ``It required a lot of time away from Norfolk Collegiate. But they gave her that time, realizing she would likely be a national winner.''

William W. King, the headmaster at Norfolk Collegiate, where Mariya is a freshman, says Mariya is ``clearly the most talented performer to attend our school in the past decade.''

Harold Prostman, professor emeritus at Old Dominion University, has coached Mariya from time to time. He said she is ``most exceptional, probably one of the two or three most gifted of the children, or young students that I've known.''

Protsman quoted a professor from Northwestern University who had heard Mariya play awhile back and who saw big things in store for her. ``This is certainly somebody we will hear about,'' the professor told Protsman.

Before studying with Compos-Falk, Mariya was a student for five years of Hobart Langrall, who passed away last September. Compos-Falk said Mariya's performance April 20 was ``absolutely beautiful, warm, tender and magical. ``Hobart must have been an angel smiling.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by CAROL O'KEEFE

Mariya Ando, of Norfolk, hopes to become a concert pianist.

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