Four-year old plays violin by ear

By DEB PETERSON
The Baxter Bulletin


COTTER, Ark. (AP) — Ethan Sexauer is four years old.

He stood up straight in front of Larisa Kasatkina at her keyboard, violin at his chin and bow in his hand. His teacher, Oksana Pavilionis, stood close enough to reach over and correct the position of his bow with her own.

Kasatkina aegan to play "Ode to Joy" from the fourth movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Ethan played with her, start to finish.

"What should we play now, Ethan?" she asked.

He thought for a few seconds, looked at Kasatkina and said with enthusiasm, "Mozart's Lullaby!"

Violin in place, he listened carefully to Kasatkina’s introduction, watching her intently and waiting patiently for his entrance, and he came in right on the mark.

Ethan's parents, Matt and Sandy Sexauer of Cotter, Ark., played classical music for Ethan before his was born. Since then they have sung lullabies to him in the evenings, children's songs in the mornings and always listen to classical music in the car.

When Ethan was only two, his father said one day, "Who is the music by?" Ethan answered, "George Fredrick Handel."

It wasn't long before he could distinguish a Telemann concerto from a Bach, Vivaldi or Veracini concerto, according to his father.

Today, his mother plays his Suzuki violin CD's while he's busy being a boy. She said he has broken two or three bows now, using them as swords.

"It appears that he's not paying any attention to the music," Sandy said, "and the next day he'll pick up his violin and play it straight through."

Matt’s sister, a violin teacher herself in another state, gave Ethan a 1/10th-size violin for his third birthday. Shortly after, his parents heard Pavilionis playing at church one day and learned she gives violin lessons. They thought it was a bit early, but decided to give it a try.

"Truthfully," Matt said, "our goals were pretty simple. Learn how to hold the violin, play some open strings, know the string names, don't kill the teacher and don't break the violin or the bow."

Ethan wanted nothing to do with it at first, so Sandy played his violin at his lessons. She was about to give up when Ethan picked up the violin himself and in no time at all was playing 'Mississippi Stop Stop' and 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'. Within months he could play 70 songs, and his repertoire now exceeds 200.

"He would go home and try to play his violin songs on his xylophone," Matt said.

Pavilionis and Kasatkina, both from Russia, have been friends and "sisters in music" since 1996. Pavilionis holds a master's degree and Kasatkina a doctorate in music. Both are accomplished musicians and performers, and the two operate a school offering music lessons, Ovation Music Academy.

Their goal, they said, is to provide an affordable, integrated music program in which students learn theory, notes, harmony, rhythm, improvisation and composing, even classical dance. They teach music of all kinds, including country, bluegrass and jazz, in all forms, including voice.

"We want to provide comprehensive music education," Pavilionis said. "This is a school, not a studio."

"The neatest thing is that Ethan's got this opportunity with an amazing teacher," Matt said, "and all because we stumbled upon it at church. In a small town like Cotter, to have an opportunity like this ... a person ought to use it."

He's looking forward to discovering if Ethan's little sister, Paige, who dances when Ethan plays, will want to play an instrument herself. To this family, it's clearly a worthy effort.