When Caitlan Rinadly turned five years old, she requested her mother to get her a piano. Now, five years after, she is playing in front of thousands at Carnegie Hall while growing up in Redding. Her family was originally from Australia. However, they decided to move to the United States back in 2011 so that Caitlan will be able to study at some of the most prestigious music conservatories in the world. Her mother just wanted her to be able to learn to play music “with emotion” as well as pursue her dreams.
“I don’t have to be able to speak Japanese or Chinese but people can understand my music,” explained Caitlan and the way she expresses herself through her playing of the piano. The 10-year-old also did admit that some of her favourite pieces to play are “show-offy.” One of such pieces is the Franz Liszt piece “Gnomenreigen,” which is rather fast paced and extremely technical. Both herself as well as her brother, Nathan, have displayed a natural talent along with the willingness to work to be considered as prodigies.
For Nathan, he started playing flute after the family moved to Pennsylvania. After only three lessons, he was asked to audition for the Curtis Institute of Music. This coming fall, he will be joining the boys choir at Temple University and studying flute. As for Caitlan, she has taken part in many competitions and performed alongside both adult and children’s orchestras as the accompanist since she first began playing the piano. This year, she was allowed to bypass the preliminaries of the Young Piano Concerto of New Jersey competition and make it straight through to the finals. Just last month, she won the Chopin International Competition in Hartford.
After being in Philadelphia area for three years with one teacher, they moved on to Redding to be closer to her new teacher Yoshie Akimoto. This coming August, Caitlan will be commencing lessons at the Julliard Music Pre-college program. She mentioned that she is looking forward towards it. The college offers the program for elementary through high school age students on weekends. For the rest of the story, you can read it from here.
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