via CAAI
By Andrew Ford, Times Correspondent
In Print: Saturday, January 1, 2011
Chance Nye, 13, performs Thursday for the Just Teens program that will showcase his talents on Pinellas County School TV 14. [ANDREW FORD Special to the Times]
CLEARWATER — Chance Nye casually improvised on a grand piano.
The 13-year-old fluidly moved among popular melodies like Flight of the Bumblebee and ABC by the Jackson Five.
He has come a long way from Cambodia, where he was born, to play for a television segment called Fingers of Nye on the Just Teens program that will showcase his talents on Pinellas County School TV 14. Dates and times of the broadcast have not been set.
About 40 people showed up Thursday afternoon for the taping, which took place at La Grande Hall at Piano Distributors in Clearwater.
Chance was adopted when he was 4 months old in 1997 by Destiny Masters, 50.
"The minute I laid eyes on him, I knew it was meant to be," she said of her adopted son.
She is raising Chance with her husband, Steve Masters, whom she met in 2002. They live in Wesley Chapel.
At age 2, Chance started fooling around with an organ owned by Destiny Masters' godfather. By the time he was 5, he could play the Rugrats television theme song.
As he warmed up on stage Thursday, his mother said, "I get to listen to this all the time. It's great until dad wants to watch football."
Chance performed several pieces, including Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor and a medley containing River Flows in You. As his friends urged him to play something they would recognize, he did the theme from the video game Modern Warfare 2.
Chance has some classical music on his iPod, but much of it is rap and hip-hop, featuring artists like Jay-Z and Lil Wayne. BedRock is one of Chance's favorite songs.
During the performance, the camera man moved around the pianist, shooting from many different angles. Afterward, Chance said it was "a little distracting, but not too much."
Teen Tyme Productions was responsible for putting on the event. The nonprofit organization works to create positive programming for teens and relies on viewer contributions.
Stacey Spencer, 42, founded the production company 13 years ago in Louisville, Ky. The company moved to Largo four years ago. She started Teen Tyme to spread a positive message.
"I believe that music, movement and the arts are all too often forgotten," she said.
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