Concert Piano's Littlest Star

CBS Evening News: 9-Year-Old Marc Yu Is Acclaimed Pianist And Philanthropist

(CBS)  When you look at Marc Yu, you see a typical little boy.

But when you listen to him playing the piano, you discover he's anything but typical, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports.

It's a stretch to reach the pedals. A stretch for his tiny hands to play all the chords. But this 9-year-old from Pasadena is an acclaimed pianist and performer - a prodigy.

What drew him to the piano?

"I just liked the melody. I can just feel the music inside me being released," Marc said.

At age 2, he was picking out tunes.

"When I was 3 I asked my mom, 'May I become a concert pianist?' And she said 'Yes,'" Yu said.

And at 3, he played Beethoven at his debut concert. Now playing Schubert at Albert Hall in London - a duet with his idol, superstar pianist, Lang Lang.

"It's so exciting. It's like sleeping with the gods or winning a lottery," he said.

He's already joking with the stars.

On Ellen Degeneres, he said: "Three notes went to a bar, C, E flat and G. And the bartender says, 'get out of here, we don't serve minors!'"

He practices four, five, even eight hours a day, always with his mother, Chloe, by his side.

"A lot of people think that the parents must be crazy; they must be pushing him," Chloe said. "I'm actually following his lead!"

She homeschools him, because of his hectic schedule. In Mobile, Ala., on his mission to turn children on to classics, he performed benefit concerts, raising $680,000 for victims of the Szechwan earthquake.

"I want to achieve incredible things. That's why I practice a lot," Marc Yu said.

Which, of course, is how you get to Carnegie Hall. He's playing there next year.