Emily Bear is seven years old and began her piano studies with Emilio delRosario of the Music Institute of Chicago (MIC). She currently studies piano with Mary Sauer of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and jazz improvisation with Alan Swain. Additional mentors include Veda Kaplinski of Juilliard. She is equally comfortable playing jazz, classical and her own compositions as is shown by her diverse and extensive concert repertoire.
Emily received national attention when she was a featured guest on The Ellen Degeneres Show. She appeared on 3 episodes in three and a half months: October 3rd and November 23, 2007 and January 8th, 2008. She was asked back for a 4th episode, which aired November 17, 2008.
Emily made her professional debut performing a solo concert at the Ravinia Music Festival in July, 2007 when she was 5 years old. She played a solo 40 minute program mixing classical, jazz and her own compositions. She is the youngest performer in Ravinia’s more than 100 year history. She performed there again on September 7, 2008 and has been asked to return for a third time in July,2009.
On March 24th, 2008, Emily was invited to perform at The White House for The Easter Egg Roll breakfast for President and Mrs. Bush. She performed a 30 minute solo concert mixing jazz and original compositions, followed by 2 songs played especially for President and The First Lady.
Emily was a recipient of a 2008 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Competition award for her original song, “Northern Lights”. She was one of 9 winners in the 18 year old and younger category out of a field of almost 600 applicants. She was asked to be one of two pianists to perform at the awards ceremony. This December she was asked to perform her winning song at Lincoln Center at an ASCAP award ceremony concert.
I found this article about Emily it's kinda old but has some interesting things in it.
Emily Bear probably the youngest ever pianist has been playing piano for a little more than a year. At a tender age of only six years, her achievements are greatly inspiring and her skills are praiseworthy. Some very essential features that determine a good pianist like Classical, jazz and boogie come to her without much effort. She composes her own songs, which creates magic and delivers a beautiful classics and standards, which makes the audience spellbound.
Emily Bear was a baby of 2 years when her mother took her to meet Emilio Del Rosario, a reputed music teacher. He was speechless for a few minutes when he saw the little hands play the piano so melodiously. Now at the age of six, Emily aspires higher and presents something more astonishing to her audience every time she performs. Recently she appeared on the Ellen Show and on the sets, in just a few minutes, she composed her own songs.
Emily Bear has an amazing technique, which may be called a Natural prodigy playing piano without even a single lesson. There is no way in which anybody can doubt her skill, each an every musical piece she delvers is beautiful. She can play Bach with such proficiency that many experienced and skilled pianists may find it difficult to play.
Supposing at some point while she was playing ,speed of the music speeds up twice the speed, Emily Bear always adjusted her head movement accordingly. Head movement also plays a very significant role while playing a piano as it adds more appeal to the music. It would look really weird and may have spoiled the charm of music if her music and head movement would not coincide.
Emily Bear at such a young age with her talent and devotion to piano has won the hearts of many piano lovers. She is considered the youngest solo performer in the history of the Ravinia Festival and has performed with many well-known musicians. She even got the opportunity to appear on the famous The Ellen De Generes Show in October 2007.
Emily Bears famous Ellen's Song was composed when she appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. She even composed and played some beautiful songs in a Film by Pablo korona and her latest CD released is Five Years Wise. Emily opened the Chicago McDonald's Thanksgiving Day Parade with one of her original compositions, the estimated number of viewers were 1.5 million people.
That additional biography material just adds to my awe.
I want to keep in mind that Emily is still a seven year old human and all that comes with that. She is adorable and I'm sure we'd all love her whether she could play a note or not. Still, how can a non-musician like me not be utterly astonished at Emily's abilities when even seasoned musicians are astonished at her music abilities?
Further, what finally dawned on me while reading your new article about Emily is that Emily is not just a piano prodigy -- she is a music prodigy of the first order. Emily can probably learn to play many other instruments at a master's level. Someone suggested in another post that Emily has composed for other instruments besides the piano (her sister plays the harp, I believe?).
Do any of you reading this ever recall another youngster composing music for movie soundtracks? I think Emily may be breaking Guinness records all over the place.
I remember that one little quote from one of her videos where she has aspirations of leaning to play the flute. If I remember correctly the dialog she has goes something like: "My brother plays electric and acoustic guitar, and my sister plays harp and piano. So far I only play the piano, but I would like to play the flute." She is a sparkler for sure, and I wouldn't be surprized if it actually came to pass sooner than later.
Perhaps even more awaits than we can imagine.
Bach would be an interesting example. He was a masterful player of nearly every contemporary musical instrument in his day. Violin/ recorder style flute/ every keyboard instrument available pretty much. Plus he tuned and maintained all his instruments, auditioning and selecting choir voices, tending to all the orchestra parts, as well as of course writing out a very large amount of music.
Obviously we live in a different sort of age, but still, I think Emily will end up making more than one kind of historic note in a very similar fashion.
This was in the first video I ever saw of Emily, and which certainly left some impression on me. It's at 1:15 to 1:25 there :-)
Although it has the usual sensational style, this video still is a nice one, mainly because of all the quotes from Emily, her mother and her teacher.
BTW, I don't understand Emily's last sentence, where she says "I am ... a normal kid, playing the piano, and most ... kids". Can anyone help?
Dieter
Dieter,
you mentioned this "old" video about Emily, so I decided to make some screenshots, because there are no new Emily's photos available in Internet in last days and I like to post some. So here are some pics saying what I like on that video:
.... when she says "I don't know" ....
... when she tittered ...
... when she played jazz and moved by legs in the rhythm ...
Thanks for these wonderful screenshots. Although I don't know Emily in person, I think they show her personality in a beautiful way. Just yesterday I found a discussion group where people expressed their fear Emily could be in any way exploited. If you watch these videos and see these screenshots it is so easy to notice how far such a fear is from reality, how much she loves what she is doing, and what a very kind heart she has.
I am not bringing anything new here I only want to emphasize here one thing which already was mentioned here but I think it needs to be mentioned again because it is very important (at least for me).
I heard it, I liked it but I didn't realise its depth so far. Usually, I need some time for that and sometimes hint from other people.
We call Emily by words such as incredible, talented, beautiful, amazing, surreal, or inside Internet articles we can find words: prodigy, next Mozart, genius and so on.
And then you watch Emily in WGN clip/shot and you hear her words:
"I am just a normal kid, that plays the piano, and the most I like inspiring kids"
And this her motto is also surreal like her talent. I love her modesty and believe she will adhere it the whole her life.
And she really inspires kids, e.g. Dieter, me, ...
That was a good post, every day I get comments on my you tube video's some I can tell are from younger people who have watched Emily's videos all of which say they want to play better or start playing again. It gladdens me to know that Emily is touching the lives of so many young people through her video's and who knows maybe someday one of those young people may compose a masterpeice that was inspired, maybe a little bit by Emily Bear.
eulenspiegel2: most things have some delay because of the custom service...and very likely Emily and Abigail did not pay for speed shifting/transport...
Feb 11, 2022 16:47:40 GMT -6
eulenspiegel2: we all don‘t know anything...in recent weeks only speculation...we all have just to wait...
Sept 1, 2022 16:11:04 GMT -6
Ursula: Unfortunately I can't read the German forum. Sigh. Too bad they haven't said anything. You'd think their lawyers would come out with a statement at the least. And they keep posting on social media like everything is normal.
Sept 7, 2022 23:14:39 GMT -6
Ursula: Also why is that other forum in German. Why not English?
Sept 7, 2022 23:15:55 GMT -6
eulenspiegel2: it is a German forum...about German pop singer... you may be surprised...but the USA is not the center of the world - it is like US people coming to Europe wondering why not signs in English ..
Sept 8, 2022 5:30:36 GMT -6
ursus: Ursula, Google Translate works very well if you translate from German into English and you just need to understand the meaning of what was written. It does still require an understanding of German if you want to use it to post in that language.
Sept 14, 2022 1:53:26 GMT -6
ursus: IIRC B&B's lawyers have until 9/23 to respond to the lawsuit. It would not make sense for them to make a public statement before that. B&B themselves have undoubtedly been instructed not to say anything either. That makes sense to me.
Sept 14, 2022 1:59:52 GMT -6
eulenspiegel: Happy New Year!!!
Dec 31, 2022 18:14:37 GMT -6
mastersgttom: For the benefit of all the members and the guests who visit this site be advised that there is a You Tube video out there of Barlow and Bear doing a live stream. The video was posted by Epic Wonderland. Where she got it I have no clue.
Mar 8, 2024 12:53:33 GMT -6
mastersgttom: The video of the live stream cannot be found on any of their social media platforms. At least from any of my feeble attempts. The video is a bit hard to watch because the audio is totally out of sync with the video.
Mar 8, 2024 12:58:25 GMT -6
mastersgttom: What I got out of the video was that it had nothing to do with Moana. They were very mum about their work on that movie. Bling Ring came up in some of the comments. A bit odd that they have a live stream out there, writing music, and not making it public.
Mar 8, 2024 13:02:27 GMT -6
mastersgttom: Wow! I just noticed that it has been a little over a year since anyone has posted anything in this Shoutbox. Eluenspiegel was the last one. I messaged him this discovery a week ago but haven't heard back. He used to be the most active member here.
Mar 8, 2024 13:08:36 GMT -6