When he was just 15 months old, Ethan Walmark totally floored his entire family when he started playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on the piano. At first, his parents thought the sound of the piano came from the television as their son wasn’t 2 years old at that point of time. Apart from that, Ethan had never taken any piano lessons before. From then on, they started to realise their son’s gift of hearing a song no more than three times and reproducing it on the piano.
“Music has allowed him to come out of his world into our world. When he plays music, there’s no such thing as autism for him. He becomes a completely typical child,” stated Allison Ziering Walmark, Ethan’s mother. After she posted a video of him playing Billy Joel’s “Piano Man,” it went viral on the net. Eventually, it helped him to earn a number of appearances on “Good Morning America” and “The Today Show”.
On Thursday night, the youngster brought his talents to Hershey. Just Cabinets Furniture & More, headquartered in Lower Paxton Township, invited him to assist in launching the store’s “Just Cause” campaign. The aim of the campaign was to raise funds for Autism Speaks with a golf tournament at Hershey Links Golf Course. His performance was scheduled at the tournament awards ceremony at 6:45 p.m.
“Just Cause” is a four-month fundraising program that has been around for approximately six years already. They have since supported causes such as Habitat for Humanity, St. Jude’s Hospital, Alex’s Lemonade and Make a Wish Foundation. “We try to find out organizations that are really impacting the communities we live in. “We were so wowed when we met with the people from Autism Speaks. I thought it was a great fit and would impact the communities we serve,” explained Ted Bernstein, the president of Just Cabinets Furniture & More.
Currently, Just Cabinets is accepting contributions over its 20 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware until December. They will also be matching every donation by 50%. Since its inception, the campaign has raised over $50,000 in just this year alone. All the money that is being raised will go towards iPads for autistic children as well as kits to aid parents in coming up with a game plan on dealing with further challenges to come. For the full story, you can read it here.
There are 2 types of learners in piano. There are the prodigies, who can pick up skills in a similar way like Ethan. Then, there are also the hard workers, who rely on consistent practice to become the best. At Awesome Piano, we do our best in guiding each and every student to their best ability. We believe that piano lessons should be based on the individual’s own learning pace.