If you hear little 11-year-old D.J. Williams play the piano, you can’t help but be amazed.

His fingering is so subtly precise. His attention to how soft or how hard he strikes the keys; his understanding of chord progressions and nuanced pauses escapes musicians twice his age. Yet D.J. grasps it all.

He says he’s only been playing for two years, but already has composed a work he’s dubbed, “Magic is Memory.”

You have to hear it. It’s mesmerizing.

D.J. is just one of several young prodigies that State Street Academy of Music (SSA) introduced to the world at its recent grand opening in new facilities in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 248 Seneca St., Harrisburg.

As D.J. played his original work in one room, young Marcello Novak-Melendrez was practicing for Broadway with teacher Chris Purce

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