Just 14 years old, she's an accomplished pianist and composer. Yuko has traveled around Asia performing her songs, and currently has three CDs of original music available on MP3.com. What impressed us most about the young pianist, though, was her mature and prolific catalog of original music. The song we selected for this spotlight is the gentle, flowing "True Love" from her third self-produced CD.

Yuko started playing piano when she was six. "I had a toy electronic piano," she tells us, "and one of my mom's students gave me basic piano lessons." Soon after, a relative presented Yuko with an acoustic piano, and that's when Yuko immersed herself in the study of classical and contemporary music. Chopin, Debussy, Lorie Line, Yanni, George Winston, and Richard Clayderman are her main influences.

Most intriguing is Yuko's path as a composer. "Nobody taught me how to compose," she says. "It was by chance that I felt I wanted to make a song. When I was eight, my mom and I went to a music store to buy some sheet music. There was a poster announcing a Junior Composer contest, so I told my mom that I could make a song. That's how I made my first song. Then, when I was ten, I started to compose again." Today she has penned over 45 compositions.

Yuko practices piano every day "for about an hour, but not like when I was in elementary school, when I could practice for two or more hours. In Japan, we have to study hard in high school. Another reason is our neighbor complained of noise whenever I practiced piano!"

Yuko's musical goals are "to study in a good music school in America and become a composer of music for movies, plays, and TV shows." In addition to Keyboard Online, you can find info on Yuko at

 www.yukopiano.com and www.mp3.com/YukoOhigashi.

-- GREG RULE  from Keyboard magazine