How To: Creating 'Smack My Bitch Up"
posted by flatluigi on Sep 21, 2009 - 46 comments

"Maybe, just maybe, we've found the next Mozart." Not just a six year old virtuoso, but a composer as well, Emily Bear seems likely to keep us listening longer than most precocious child pianists. As one tv talk show host has learned, as a composer Emily is both speedy and prolific.
posted by washburn on May 1, 2009 - 52 comments

5 Year Old Adopted South Korean Blind Piano Prodigy Yoo Ye-eun can play songs after hearing them once. Watch her perform with Britain's Got Talent's Connie Talbot in a South Korean TV show called "Star King".
posted by MythMaker on Jul 13, 2008 - 29 comments

Gene Weingarten, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his story on Joshua Bell's busking stunt in a D.C. subway station, tells the story of an earlier busker performing in similar circumstances. With a spooky surprise ending: [more inside]
posted by fiercecupcake on Jun 30, 2008 - 28 comments

Child prodigies. (Just in case you were starting to feeling content with your middle-aged achievements.) [Warning: YouTube-heavy posting] [Warning: Chopin-heavy posting]
posted by humblepigeon on Apr 24, 2007 - 36 comments

Marjoe Gortner, world's youngest preacher kicked off his religious career by performing a marriage at the age of four and a half. Although he eventually left the evangelism gig and became a hippie, lack of cash led him to take it up again part time as an adult. That is, until a crisis of conscience precipitated a documentary where he exposed the business of evangelical ministry. "Marjoe" won the 1972 Oscar for "Best Documentary" and has been recently re-released. An interview with Marjoe. You tubery inside.
posted by arcticwoman on Feb 18, 2007 - 19 comments

Classic UK Hardcore Breakbeat videos. John Tab, a Washington DC-area Drum and Bass DJ, has been scouring you tube for classic UK hardcore and jungle videos from the early 90s and offering them up with commentary.
posted by empath on Nov 24, 2006 - 52 comments

Young + Brilliant, Blessed + Cursed
posted by Gyan on Mar 9, 2005 - 36 comments

Ever find yourself at a museum and think "my son/daughter/niece/dog could do that"? Four year old painter Marla Olmstead really can. via
posted by Ufez Jones on Oct 15, 2004 - 22 comments

Remembering the amazingly mature poetry of Mattie Stepanek: national goodwill ambassador with muscular dystrophy, and 13 year old prodigal wordsmith.
posted by moonbird on Jun 23, 2004 - 7 comments

13-year-old Gregory Robert Smith graduates from Randolph-Macon College this month. He has yet to find the vaccine for the brutal Atomic Wedgie.
posted by LexRockhard on Jun 1, 2003 - 35 comments

Faces of Happiness. Geometric Look. Irreplaceable. Meet "this rarest of child prodigies," Romanian-born artist Alexandra Nechita. An abstract cubist who took the art world by storm at age 8, she now has over 300 striking paintings to her credit.
posted by mediareport on Mar 3, 2003 - 16 comments

This is the story of what happens when a naïve 15-year-old prodigy collides with an upward-reaching football program, some of whose players feel like they own the campus. Brittany Benefield started college at age 15 with the dream of finishing law school before she turned 21. Didn't quite work out that way, and hers is an amazing story. Take the time to read this, and think about it. Would you fault her parents, for letting her get into something she wasn't ready for; the university, for letting this get out of control; the football program, for running roughshod over the school; or Brittany, for her own decisions?
posted by msacheson on May 31, 2002 - 45 comments

Ever wondered what happens to kids who takes those "So you want to be a rockstar..." books seriously? Kcool 2002 - Move over Lil' Bow Wow, this 10 year old 'multi instrumental' musician is set to take over. He has the skills, the 'tude, and the um... songwriting abilities (scroll down) to take the world by storm.
posted by aki on Apr 7, 2002 - 3 comments

Boy quits school at 7, becomes MIT professor at 20. Is alternative education a good idea? This article seems much more positive than another recent boy-genius post. It appears that most reporters assume that child prodigies are antisocial and that their parents are over-ambitious (they use negatively-connotated synonyms of those terms).
posted by alex3005 on Feb 17, 2002 - 20 comments

Smart young kids and too much freedom do not mix well. A girl prodigy at the age of 14 goes to university. She becomes mixed up in drugs, alcohol and sex. The parents sue school for lack of supervision. Is it really the school's job to look after her? Don't the parents have some responsibility here?
posted by aj100 on Aug 31, 2001 - 59 comments

Microsoft is hoarding child prodigies in order to breed the next Bill. You heard me.
posted by tweebiscuit on Aug 2, 2001 - 20 comments

BT sues Prodigy over hyperlink patent another glorious example of "we have nothing better to offer than a really big lawsuit"
posted by bliss322 on Dec 16, 2000 - 5 comments

"[11-year-old] Greg Smith loves going online and playing soccer . . . he spends afternoons reading outdoors, hiking through the mountains and playing basketball with buddies...except that this 11-year-old has just completed his first year as a full-time student at Randolph- Macon College in Virginia..." Why do I have a feeling this kid is going to be writing a painful memoir about his lost childhood by the time he's 19?
posted by Zosia Blue on Jun 20, 2000 - 10 comments