Dedication key to success of young musical prodigy
8-year-old has already re­ceived numerous honors for her talent
By Joyce Blay
Staff Writer

Veronica Yankowski Katelyn Tran, 8, of Jackson credits her supportive family and piano teacher for her success at a young age.

Eight-year-old Katelyn Tran of Jackson is a little girl with a big ambition. The musical prodigy, who was the youngest finalist in the Albert M. Greenfield Philadelphia Orchestra Com­petition earlier this year, just wants one thing.

"I want to be famous," said the young pianist.

Despite her youth, she is already well on her way to achieving her goal.

At age 5, she won first prize in the New Jersey Music Teachers Association Young Artists Competition and repeated her prize-winning performance from 1999 to 2001. She won a first-prize scholarship from the Greater Princeton Steinway Society 2002.

Her other awards are numerous, but so are her past appearances at such coveted venues as Carnegie Hall and Steinway Hall in New York City.

She is in the third grade at the Switlik Elementary School, where she is enrolled in the enrichment program as an academi­cally gifted student.

Dressed in an elegant long dress, Kate­lyn eagerly demonstrated for a visitor the sophisticated musical styling that her mother, Julie Tran, said so impressed her daughter’s teacher, Veda Zuponcic, profes­sor at Rowan University in Glassboro.

Julie Tran and her 14-year-old son, Brian, listen nearby as Katelyn sits down at the piano and begins to play Ihor Shamo’s "Morning in the Forest." The young girl’s shy demeanor is quickly replaced by a look of studious concentration as she reads the notes on her sheet music with the same in­tensity that she performs it.

As her listeners lean forward in their chairs, the young artist pounds the keys of the piano with a power and vigor her mother describes as unusual in a child with hands so small. Just as smoothly, Katelyn’s delicate fingers softly caress the ivories as the notes are diminished, then once again take a commanding stance as the notes are strengthened in intensity and the piece pro­gresses toward its conclusion.

Despite the comfort of her suburban home, for one member of her audience, Katelyn’s playing seems to conjure up an imaginary forest where wildlife abounds, nature blooms in profusion, and clean mountain air is scented with honeysuckle.

For still other audience members, her playing evokes just as vivid an image, but one that is reinterpreted through each lis­tener’s memories and imagination and in the way they relate to the young girl’s playing, according to what each describes afterward.

When she has finished, Katelyn tries to express how she is able to find so adult a voice through which she can articulate her music.

"My piano teacher tells me what it’s about and to imagine myself in a forest," she said. "She tells me to imagine in my head and then express that through my heart."

Her older brother, Brian, a ninth-grade student at Jackson Memorial High School, who has been playing piano since the age of 7, said he shared that philosophy. His musical credentials are as numerous as those of his younger sister.

In addition to having performed for four consecutive years at Carnegie Hall in New York City, from 1998 to 2001, Brian won the International Young Artist Piano Com­petition in Washington, D.C.

He has also achieved a level of aca­demic excellence for which he has received as many awards.Brian won the President’s Education Award for Outstanding Academic Excel­lence in 2002; the Scholar’s Award in 2002 for achieving high honor roll for four con­secutive years; and he was the publicity officer for the National Junior Honor So­ci­ety.

"He raised $1,500 with the National Ju­nior Honor Society after Sept. 11 to give to the American Red Cross to help victims," said Julie Tran. "He wanted to do anything he could."

In addition to playing the piano, Brian also plays the saxophone.

When asked how he can find the time to pursue so many philanthropic, musical and academic pursuits, the teenager said, "It takes a lot of sacrifice."

Sacrifice is a quality to which the sib­lings’ mother is no stranger either.

In 1979, at age 21, the amateur dancer and former medical student fled her native Vietnam among the exodus of boat people seeking refuge in the United States.

"I had to put aside my dreams after the war," she said.

She found a temporary haven in Hong Kong, the former colony of Great Britain. In 1981, she received permission to emi­grate to the United States. Once here, the multilingual immigrant lost no time in once again taking up her study of medicine, this time as a nursing school student in Philadelphia. It was there that she met her future husband, Jimmy Tran, who was also raised among the Chinese community of Vietnam. He later went on to get a degree in electrical engineering at Drexel Univer­sity. The two wed in 1986 and moved to Jackson in 1996.

"He’s very supportive, too," said Julie Tran.

Although she cannot say from where her children derive their musical talent, she said her husband played some guitar when younger, but that he didn’t have the time anymore. Instead, his hard work and suc­cess have enabled him and his wife to con­centrate on the children’s futures. It is not a sacrifice made only by Jimmy Tran. Julie Tran put aside her own career to devote herself to the cultivation of her children’s talent.

"This is a full-time job," she said.

Not just for Julie Tran, but for her bud­ding stars as well.

"In our neighborhood, people can see our lights on every night as the children ei­ther practice their music or study," said Julie Tran.

The children are just as supportive of each other, although their mother conceded that sometimes their rivalry could be equally intense.

"When Brian was very sick last week, he still came to support Katelyn when she was playing at the Plainfield Symphony Orchestra," said Julie Tran.

Katelyn will be a soloist with that or­chestra for its 2003 season.

All three were united in affirming the quality of the individualized instruction given each of the children by their music teacher. They attributed the accomplish­ments achieved by Brian and Katelyn to Zuponcic’s talent as much as their own.

"She makes the kids feel that, win or lose, they are still champions," said Julie Tran.

Brian agreed with that assessment.

"Not every teacher does that," he said.

Shyly clinging to her mother, Katelyn said, "She’s fun and nice — and she’s like a second mother."

But for everyone, success in music or in life came down to just one thing, and that is what both children said their teacher did best.

"She’s touched all of our hearts," Brian said.