Eight-year-old Andrew Gong said he’d already been playing piano for four years when his father booked him a weekly slot at the Juanita Pohl Community Center.
“This was my initial idea,” Gong’s father, Patrick, told Tualatin Life. “After he played really hard, I thought, maybe I should let more people enjoy his music, so I started to send some emails.”
The third grader now performs at the center once a month and is booked into December.
Over the summer, the young virtuoso played weekly shows at the center and even scored the reopening ceremony on Aug. 7, which was attended by Congresswoman Andrea Salinas and City Council President Valerie Pratt, among others. Since starting school, he has cut his performances to once a month.
Patrick said his son’s fascination with piano began with a chance encounter at Costco, where Andrew saw a piano selling for a $100 and was mesmerized.
“He just loved it,” Patrick said. “I feel like piano is the king of all of the instruments, so if he can play piano very well, he can play other instruments.”
Patrick said Andrew’s aunt, also a skilled pianist, was another key contributor to his proficiency, and that he aspired to play at her level.
“It started with his Aunt. His Aunt visited us from France, and she brought some French piano music,” Patrick said.
Andrew currently attends piano lessons every Saturday and said he practices for an hour every day; his dad teased that it was closer to 40 minutes. Andrew explained that he didn’t get nervous performing for an audience and said that he tries to perform “wherever he can find a place.”
“It’s not nervous, it’s fun,” Andrew said.
On Sept. 18, Andrew performed several classic piano tunes for a small crowd of Juanita Pohl regulars, casually whizzing through standards like “Für Elise” and working in fan favorites like the “Forest Gump Suite,” which he’d recently learned after watching the movie with his dad.
“Andrew tries to play a new set of piano every time he plays here,” Patrick said. “We watched the movie Forest Gump, and he said, ‘I’d like to play that song.’”
Those in attendance complimented his playing, with Juanita Pohl pool player Neil Wagner saying “it was really amazing.”
Andrew said he liked learning new songs and was currently working on adding “Medellin,” a notoriously difficult French piano ballad, to his repertoire.
“My aunt can’t even play the whole thing– it’s so hard,” Andrew said about the song.
Andrew Gong’s next performance is on Oct. 23 at 3:30 p.m. at the Juanita Pohl Center and is free to attend.
