After beating string players twice his age, Springfield's Clayton Penrose-Whitmore moved on — to Chicago, Detroit and Carnegie Hall

There must have been scores of kids who, like Clayton Penrose- Whitmore, found themselves enjoying a snack in the Ethnic Village at the Illinois State Fair, just as a group of Suzuki violin students took the stage. And there must have been several whose parents, like Clayton’s, figured, “Hey, my kid could do that,” and signed them up for music lessons. There may have even been a few other wee tykes who practiced, just like Clayton, and worked their way up from sawing out “Twinkle Twinkle” to skittering merrily through Mozart concertos.

But few students zip through the Suzuki method books at Clayton’s clip, and fewer still go on to more advanced musical literature. Clayton, at age 9, won Jacksonville Symphony Guild’s “Talent Among Us” competition, beating out area string players twice his age. At 10, he repeated the feat, winning the Sangamon Valley Youth Symphony concerto competition.

At 12, he became the youngest musician to reach the finals of the national Sphinx Competition, then returned two years later to win. He was just 13 when the New York Times described his solo with the Sphinx orchestra at Carnegie Hall as a “polished presentation . . . notable for its lilting pulse and dynamic contrast.” At 15, the Times review of another Sphinx concert at Carnegie Hall noted that Clayton gave a “buoyant per-

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