Meet the once nearly deaf cello player turned music prodigy

Friday, April 27, 2018

Meet the hard-of-hearing cello player turned music prodigy

HOUSTON, Texas -- Some people consider him a music prodigy. A high school senior is being courted by some of the top music schools in the country.

At 18 years old, Kyle Victor doesn't just play the cello, he feels it. He first fell in love with the cello when he was just 10 years old.

"The moment I played a note, that was it," he said. "I was completely into cello, and that's all I want to do."

His family says he was obsessed with it, and he begged his mom to allow him to play the instrument in school. The single mother had one rule.

"I said, 'Now you know we don't quit anything. And if you start this, you are going to do your best and be the best in this. You are going to be the best cellist there is,'" Colette Martin said.

Kyle practiced every day, and in middle school, he excelled far beyond the other students. His cello was his best friend, since he had trouble making friends in school.

"They would call me robot, or ear boy, where they could just harass me about being different from everyone else," he said.

At 3 years old, doctors found a tumor in his left ear and constant fluid built up in his right ear. Kyle could barely hear with out his hearing aids.

He remembers the many surgeries as a kid, and the pain behind the scars that are visible behind his ears.

"I cried for a lot of them," he said. "And I would beg the doctors to not do it."

The surgeries worked, and in high school, he worked even harder. He's now considered one of the state's top players.

Kyle recently won the Houston Youth Symphony Concerto competition, and he found out just weeks ago that five of the nation's top music conservatories have accepted him into their programs. He said when he found out, he ran around the halls of Klein High School.

"Getting the opportunity to play my instrument means the world to me, but to be able to go to a world-known university where I can keep expanding my skills and become better, that would be everything to me," Kyle said.

Kyle revealed live that he will be attending the Peabody Conservatory at John's Hopkins University in Maryland. It's the oldest conservatory in the United States.

"I always say, we did this," Martin said. "I say we did this. It's an amazing feeling. It's exciting."

WATCH: Kyle's big college reveal