NEW ORLEANS – When you start something when you’re six, you probably have a passion for it.
For 11-year-old Kayla Bodden, that passion is playing the piano.
WGNO News with a Twist features guy Wild Bill Wood says Kayla Bodden is ready to be one of Wild Bill’s Amazing Kids brought to you by your friends at Best Chevrolet.
Kayla is a fifth grader at New Orleans Einstein Charter Middle School. She’s in piano class most days with her teacher Peter Varnado.
He says Kayla definitely has the natural gift to play.
When she plays, Wild Bill wonders what’s going through her head when her fingers are moving across the keyboard.
Kayla says sometimes she gets mad at herself when she messes up. Kayla doesn’t like to mess up when she plays the piano.
But if and when she does, she’s got a plan. Kayla gets up and dances. She dances like a ballerina dances.
Her teacher says she dances it off. And then she sits down at the piano and begins to play again.
When she’s not playing at her school, she’s playing at another school. That’s the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music. A couple of guys who get the beat founded this place. Those guys are Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick, Jr.
Kayla has a piano professor at the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music. He’s Dr. Michael Torregano.
He says Kayla is right where she belongs here. Sitting on stage. Playing her piano. And that piano happens to be a Steinway concert grand.