7 Year old Wunderkind Marc Yu Performs

Two-time guest on the Tonight Show will perform at the Pasadena Symphony's Musical Circus Feb. 4When storyteller and actor David Prather last appeared at The Pasadena Symphony's free Musical Circus for families with young children, he arrived as "Mr. Beethoven," to introduce the audience of fledgling music lovers to one of classical music's most renowned composers.

On Feb. 4, when Prather returns to the Musical Circus, the performance will have a slightly different twist. This time, Prather will introduce the children to an aspiring young musician no older than they are: 7-year-old cellist and pianist Marc Yu, who is already well on his way to achieving his dream of performing Beethoven at Carnegie Hall.

A student at the Colburn School, Marc Yu has already mastered two works for piano by Beethoven as well as numerous compositions by Bach, Bartok, Chopin and Mozart, among others. Awards he has recently won include the Leni Fe Bland Audition Competition, the Barbara and David L. Abell Scholarship and Ackerberg Scholarship from the Young Musicians Foundation and a Davidson Fellowship Award, which has never before been awarded to a child as young as Yu.

Last summer, the young musician made his orchestral debut with the Capistrano Valley Symphony and, in May will repeat the experience when he appears with the Laredo Philharmonic Orchestra in Laredo, Texas. Television shows on which Yu has performed include Oprah, the Ellen DeGeneres Show and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "What's amazing is that, when you first meet Marc, he seems like a typical little kid," says Jolie Ancel, Segment Producer for the Tonight Show.

Like Yu, David Prather fell in love with music at an early age, as a child in Washington D.C., where he sang as a choirboy at the National Cathedral. Prather has shared the joy of music with young audiences, through the Los Angeles Music Center's Education Division, for nearly two decades and, for the past five years, has hosted the Los Angeles Philharmonic's popular Summer Sounds: Music for Kids at the Hollywood Bowl. In addition, the actor has helped to create and lead the Music Center's Summer Institute as well as a pilot institute for the San Francisco Symphony.