‘A rare talent’: Meet France’s six-year-old piano prodigy

Guillaume Benoliel is a French concert pianist.

He is also six years old.

He can play pieces as difficult as Rachmaninoff’s Italian Polka.

This summer, he got a chance to perform in Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was also a child prodigy.

Guillaume has won two prizes in the Grand Prize Virtuoso, an international music competition.

“Guillaume has a rare talent,” says Serguei Kouznetsov, piano teacher at Val D’yerres Conservatory. “I met talented people in my career but not like him. In fact, when I talk about talent, it’s a mix of things – a mix of mind, heart and hands. The way he lives his music is extremely rare. People his age don’t usually play these music pieces because of their complexity, their comprehensiveness. Often, we don’t play these before 13, 14 years old.”