There have, of course, always been prodigies. An increasing number of Chinese prodigies attend European and American music schools and conservatories. But, says McLachlan, himself an acclaimed performer, Chinese children succeed at the keyboard because their families value the work ethos that piano playing provides. With China reportedly having 30 million young pianists, the fact that a number of them are winning competitions may not be surprising. 'They dominate music-making at both the school and the conservatory level.' 'Today, most young musicians winning competitions are Asian,' notes Murray McLachlan, Yuanfan's teacher at Manchester's famous Chetham's School of Music. Like Yuanfan, many of the young virtuosos are Chinese or of Chinese origin. The American Protégé competition already features a category for players aged six to 10 years old, and next year New York's Kaufman Center will hold its second International Youth Piano Competition, open to players aged seven to 17. In a nod to the youthful trend, the prominent Van Cliburn piano competition recently announced that it will add contests for 13- to 17-year-olds.

The trend is most obvious for the piano, though string players, too, are showing impressive skills at an ever-younger age. Conservatories in Europe and North America report an increasing number of pre-teens who turn up for auditions flawlessly performing repertoire previously considered the domain of 25 year olds. British nine-year-old Alma Deutscher started playing the piano at two and the violin at three and now composes operas, having acquired an early taste for the trade by writing Nokia ring tones. Ten-year-old pianist Laetitia Hahn has been delighting German concertgoers with her Chopin and Beethoven for over three years. Five-year-old Ryan Wang, a fellow Canadian pianist, has performed at Carnegie Hall. The superstar in question, Kevin Chen, has already passed the country's piano teacher exam and is currently studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music. 'Canada's piano superstar is eight years old,' proclaimed the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) earlier this year. Welcome to the awe-inspiring age of young Mozarts who rattle off Chopin's tricky études as well as entire piano concertos. 'When I was young, nobody played them until they were adults.' 'Today kids are recording the Chopin études at age 10,' reports Kaplinsky.

'It's the Olympic syndrome: records exist in order to be broken.' Wanting to better the accomplishments of others is, of course, part of human nature, but thanks to this collectively competitive streak societies have advanced through the centuries. 'Musicians are doing more advanced things at a younger age than ever before,' says Yoheved Kaplinsky, a professor of piano at The Juilliard School in New York and head of its pre-college division.

In the category of the extremely talented, Yuanfan has got plenty of youthful company.

Child piano prodigy on ellen