Michael Province

Listen, and you forget the rest of the world. Listen, and you forget he’s a child.

Michael, 13, of Palm City, has a talent that belies his years - and a mischievous streak that screams teenage boy. One minute he’s lost in Vivaldi and the next he’s doing hip-hop moves, teasing his mother and talking about basketball.

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it,” he says, breaking into a beat, hand over his mouth.

It is Michael’s talent as a violinist that will be on display Monday when he is featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show as one of the “world’s smartest and most talented kids.” The show airs at 4 p.m.

Michael, who has been playing since he was 6 years old, practices two hours a day. He is home-schooled and takes violin lessons once a week from Carol Cole, a professor at Lynn University.

His mother, Ann Kerbel, said for a long time she didn’t know her son had a gift. Comments from other parents and instructors soon made her realize he might be unusually good for such a young age.

She saw an ad on Oprah’s Website about the talented kids program and posted a video of Michael playing. Comments immediately piled up.

“A week or two later they called,” Kerbel said.

Michael and his mother flew to Chicago last week to tape the show. Oddly, they received the call while Michael was participating in the filming of a British documentary called “The World’s Greatest Musical Prodigies.” He was one of five kids selected; filming has not concluded yet.

Michael, a natural performer, shrugs a bit at the attention. He dislikes practice, but loves the stage, and confessed to not caring much for the violin when he first began to play.

Asked when that changed, he gets a sly smile: “When did I like it better? Probably the last few weeks.”

Tags: Michael Province, Oprah, Palm City, violinist

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Martin County, Palm City. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.