Pianist, 14, Sneaks Out of Cuba to Pursue His Dream

The piano is old and out of tune, with a few stuck keys, but teen-age prodigy Erikson Rojas can make it sound magical.

He takes his seat on a phone book on the piano bench to get a little boost. His hands hit the keys and suddenly Rojas, the piano and his music become one.

The 14-year-old Rojas, who sneaked out of Cuba with his mother, has become somewhat of a celebrity in South Florida since he arrived in September. He has appeared on both Spanish-language TV networks.

His trip to the United States was fraught with risks, but became a reality thanks to a lot of luck and a quick-thinking mother.

“I knew that here he would have the opportunity to be what he wants to be--a great concert pianist,” says his mother, Daisy Marcelo. “I wanted a better life for Erikson. From the time he was born, there was a piano at the home.”

Marcelo got the chance to leave Havana when she was picked in a lottery as one of the 20,000 Cubans allowed to emigrate legally to the United States this year.

But she says the Communist government would have never allowed her son to leave if they knew he was a gifted pianist.

To conceal her son’s identity, she applied for a new passport. The stamps in Erikson’s old passport chronicling his travels to Mexico and other countries to play concerts would have given him away.

She also needed a letter from Erikson’s school. Children under 18 are not allowed to leave Cuba unless they have an exception--to participate in prestigious sports or music events--or win the lottery.

“I went to the school and told them I married a Czech and was going to the Czech Republic so they would give me the letter I needed saying the boy could leave the country,” Marcelo says.

If she had told school officials she was leaving for the United States, they would have never approved, she says. Leaving for the former communist bloc, however, is not so frowned upon.

“I was very nervous because they would have sent me to the fields to cut sugar cane if they caught me,” says Marcelo, who is divorced.

Since coming to South Florida, Erikson has struggled through school because of the language barrier and he has had to deal with a lot of new distractions. The playful, often mischievous teenager loves to fish.

He and his mother live with an uncle in a one-room studio apartment in Miami Beach. In the center of the efficiency is an old white piano that Erikson really doesn’t like, but has to use. His mother can’t afford anything else.

But his love for the piano is obvious. It makes him the center of attention. He plays all types of music, ranging from classical to contemporary Cuban.

“It’s in my blood,” Erikson says. “It was something I was born with. I like the sound it makes. It’s the best music you can make.”

He has even composed his own music.

In the United States, Erikson hopes to make it big. But his mother, who is unemployed, has no money to pay for expensive lessons. And there are no schools in Miami for a student of Erikson’s caliber.

When they arrived, Marcelo sought out a Miami-Dade Community College professor, Bill Dawson, who had visited them once in Cuba. He was touring the the island looking for young talent and arranged a concert for Erikson in Mexico.

Dawson was surprised when Erikson showed up in Miami. He immediately went to work trying to get him into the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he had studied.

“This boy is really much too excelled,” Dawson said. “He deserves the level of teaching that Curtis could provide. They are known for taking young prodigies.”

Erikson is set to rehearse for an opening in March, and has already played for the school’s director, Gary Grafman.

His teacher calls him a “diamond in the rough.” Susan Starr, a renowned concert pianist and teacher at Curtis, comes to Miami weekly as an artist in residence at Florida International University. She has taken on Erikson for free, waiving her $100-an-hour fee until a sponsor comes forward.

Starr says she’s seen many children his age that were more advanced, but none with the “raw talent” that Erikson possesses.

“He learns very quickly,” she says. “There is an indefinable something that just seems to come from nowhere that just nobody could ever teach a student. There is an intuition about the music that nobody could just teach. You just don’t see that very often.”