{"id":375411,"date":"2026-10-17T03:08:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T03:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/375411\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T03:08:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T03:08:18","slug":"how-do-you-get-to-carnegie-hall-for-one-rhinebeck-11-year-old-piano-virtuoso-it-was-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/375411\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? For One Rhinebeck 11-Year-Old Piano Virtuoso, It Was Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are milestones that divide a musician\u2019s life into before and after. Carnegie Hall is one of them. For Eli Limotte, an 11-year-old pianist from Rhinebeck, that moment arrived on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\"\"On Saturday, Eli Limotte, an 11-year-old pianist from Rhinebeck, made his Carnegie Hall debut, performing \u201cFlight of the Bumblebee,\u201d the famously fast-paced composition by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. (Photo by Claire Greenburger)<\/p>\n

On the stage of Weill Recital Hall, Eli performed \u201cFlight of the Bumblebee,\u201d the famously fast-paced composition by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He was one of 31 young musicians from across the country and beyond whose achievements in international music competitions earned them invitations to perform at the famed music hall.<\/p>\n

It has been a rapid ascent for a boy who began piano lessons at age 5, with no ambitions beyond learning an instrument he enjoyed playing. He only started entering competitions about a year ago, but his unexpected success has opened doors that neither Eli nor his parents anticipated.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you play Carnegie Hall at 11 years old, it\u2019s kind of a question of what is the next mountain,\u201d said Theodore Gresler, one of Eli\u2019s two piano instructors, who has taught him since he was 5.<\/p>\n

Gresler, who teaches at the Rhinebeck School of Music, and Eli\u2019s other piano teacher, Sohyun Ahn, of the Bard College Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division, both believe he has the talent to pursue music professionally. But Eli is still figuring out what he wants from music.<\/p>\n

Practicing, which he does for at least 30 minutes a day, in addition to his three weekly lessons, isn\u2019t his favorite part, he acknowledged. But \u201cnoodling, making my own song, that\u2019s really fun,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Recently, he figured out how to play a song from the movie \u201cUp\u201d simply by listening to it. He also likes music \u201cwith, like, words.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eli has a mop of dark hair that falls past his eyebrows and over his ears, a dimpled smile, and a faint smattering of freckles across his cheeks. He is nearly the height of his mom but still much smaller than his dad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Eli began taking piano lessons at age 5, with no ambitions beyond learning to play an instrument. (Photo by Claire Greenburger)<\/p>\n

Two weeks before his Carnegie Hall performance, Eli said he was feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement, and preparing with plenty of \u201cpractice, practice, practice.\u201d Still, he has grown accustomed to performing. He can\u2019t actually remember his first recital, he said, noting that he must have been around age seven.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As he talked, he wiggled restlessly on his seat in his family\u2019s Rhinebeck home, shifting between stretching his legs straight out in front of him and sitting perfectly upright, legs crisscrossed.<\/p>\n

But when he sat down at the family\u2019s upright Sohmer & Co. piano in the dining room, his body grew still. With no sheet music in front of him, his eyes followed his fingers as they flew across the keys, dancing and twisting through the rises and falls of \u201cFlight of the Bumblebee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eli was born in Brooklyn and moved with his family to Rhinebeck during the pandemic, when he was four. His father, John Limotte, runs a creative agency, and his mother, Tabitha Limotte, is a psychotherapist. Neither considers themselves particularly musical.<\/p>\n

They simply thought music would be a good thing for their son to learn, and liked the idea, John said, of him having \u201csomething he could be good at.\u201d Besides, \u201che was never particularly sporty,\u201d his father said.<\/p>\n

At age 5, Eli began taking ukulele lessons with Gresler at the Rhinebeck School of Music, but soon gravitated toward the piano. \u201cTwo instruments felt like too much at that age,\u201d John said, so they decided to focus on the piano.<\/p>\n

\"\"Eli\u2019s family and piano teacher quickly recognized his natural aptitude for music and his \u201cgood ear.\u201d (Photo by Claire Greenburger)<\/p>\n

Gresler remembers a young student with a lively imagination and an eagerness to explore whatever captured his interest. After learning basic musical notation and working through introductory piano books, Eli began tackling classical pieces and pop standards. He was a \u201cvery steady and consistent practicer, which is probably the greatest contributing variable to his rapid succession,\u201d Gresler said.<\/p>\n

By age 6, Eli had demonstrated a natural aptitude for music and a \u201cgood ear,\u201d his father said. But the pleasure of playing wasn\u2019t always enough to motivate him. What Eli did love was playing something well and seeing how people responded. Sometimes, John recalled, Eli seemed more interested in watching his audience as he performed than in watching the keys, eager to register their enjoyment.<\/p>\n

Eli\u2019s passion, too, has \u201calways seemed to be in music more broadly,\u201d his father said, sitting at the family\u2019s dining room table. As he talked about his son\u2019s interest in instruments beyond the piano, including drums, clarinet, bass clarinet, and guitar, Eli, who had been listening unseen from the top of the stairs, poked his head into view and flashed an approving thumbs-up through the banister.<\/p>\n

About two years ago, Eli\u2019s parents, recognizing their son\u2019s growing musical abilities, enrolled him in the Bard College Conservatory of Music Preparatory Division, a program that provides music education, including theory and performance training, to students ages 3 to 18. There, he began studying with Ahn, a classically trained pianist with more than two decades of concert performance experience.<\/p>\n

Ahn offered a contrast to Gresler, whom John described as \u201cwonderfully sweet,\u201d \u201cextremely good with kids,\u201d \u201cvery empathetic,\u201d and \u201cfunny.\u201d Ahn, by comparison, took a more serious, disciplined approach, emphasizing technique and musical precision.<\/p>\n

As Eli put it, Gresler \u201ceases in, nice, slow,\u201d while Ahn is more \u201cget it done.\u201d He has grown fond of both teachers, whose contrasting approaches have helped him develop different sides of his musicianship.<\/p>\n

And his parents believe the combination has been essential to his progress. \u201cToo much of just \u2018get down to business\u2019 [and] maybe he would burn out,\u201d Tabitha said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Born in Brooklyn, Eli moved with his family to Rhinebeck during the pandemic, when he was 4 years old. (Photo by Claire Greenburger)<\/p>\n

Ahn, who began teaching Eli about two years ago, remembers meeting a boy who was eager to show off the music he could already play but had little interest in pursuing particular achievements. \u201cHe was just enjoying and sharing his music,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

She began introducing more demanding classical pieces, encouraging him to think not only about playing the correct notes but also about what he wanted to communicate through the music. A song, she explained, is like \u201ca story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to come from the performer,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Eli\u2019s technique improved, Ahn pushed him further, assigning increasingly challenging pieces, some requiring him to memorize eight to 10 pages of music and execute long passages at extraordinary speed. She also began asking him to send recordings of his practice sessions, which he dutifully did.<\/p>\n

About a year ago, at Ahn\u2019s encouragement, Eli began entering piano competitions, submitting videos of his performances for judges to evaluate.<\/p>\n

He placed fourth in his first competition, then first in another and second in a third, he recalled, interrupting his father as John tried to reconstruct the results.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came in third,\u201d John began.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no,\u201d Eli corrected. \u201cThe first one came in fourth. Second one came in first. Third one came in second.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Eli\u2019s mother, Tabitha Limotte (right), emphasized that despite his musical accomplishments, her son is still, above all, a kid who enjoys playing the piano and having fun. (Photo by Claire Greenburger)<\/p>\n

Eli said his success made him want to take piano more seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This summer, when his parents arrived to pick him up from sleepaway camp, they had some big news to share: Eli\u2019s third-place finish in a recent piano competition had earned him an invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall.<\/p>\n

The news was \u201ckind of crazy,\u201d Eli recalled. He wanted to rush to tell his friends, but decided to \u201ckeep it low.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to brag,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

After months of practice\u2014which his parents said still required their prodding\u2014Eli walked onto the stage of Carnegie Hall\u2019s Weill Recital Hall, an intimate, 268-seat auditorium, on Sunday. Wearing a khaki suit, he was the seventh of 31 young musicians scheduled to perform that evening, which, in addition to pianists, included a violinist, a cellist, and a harpist. The youngest performer was just 4 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty good overall,\u201d Eli said of his performance afterward. Was it one of his best? \u201cProbably, yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterward, he received a glass apple engraved with Carnegie Hall, a memento he plans to display on a trophy shelf.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But one of the most memorable parts of the evening, Eli said, was meeting another young pianist named Joe, who performed immediately after him. The two struck up a friendship and, when the musicians returned to the stage at the end of the recital, they were giggling and goofing around together.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as it was like a very serious thing,\u201d his mother said, \u201cEli\u2019s still mostly in a stage of just having fun and playing.\u201d The family ended the night with ice cream.<\/p>\n

\"\"Eli was among 31 young musicians from across the country and beyond invited to perform at Carnegie Hall on Saturday after winning international music competitions, each receiving a glass apple engraved with Carnegie Hall as a memento. (Photo courtesy of John Limotte)<\/p>\n

His teachers, too, are reluctant to prescribe a future for him.<\/p>\n

Ahn believes Eli has the ability to pursue serious classical study, perhaps eventually attending a conservatory. But she hopes that, whatever path he chooses, music will remain a meaningful part of his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, music can be [his] best friend in his life,\u201d she said, something he can turn to in both happy and difficult times.<\/p>\n

Gresler, too, sees his ultimate goal as helping Eli not only succeed musically, but also develop a lasting love for what he does. Eli\u2019s musical curiosity and interest in different instruments, he said, suggest that his future might extend well beyond classical piano.\u00a0<\/p>\n

First things first, though. On Saturday, Eli is scheduled to perform \u201cFlight of the Bumblebee\u201d once more, this time in Cambridge, at Harvard University.<\/p>\n

After that, he\u2019s looking forward to taking a week off from piano, a break he specifically requested, and, when he returns, playing something other than \u201cFlight of the Bumblebee.\u201d<\/p>\n

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