Music: Toy Symphonist

For most of the day, the plump eleven-year-old crawled around the bathroom floor steering the electric toy automobile with the flashing headlights. The next evening, dressed in a white jacket, short black pants, white socks and black shoes, he made his way to Brussels’ Palais des Beaux Arts, where he conducted the Antwerp Philharmonic Orchestra in Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony, Egmont Overture and Third Piano Concerto. At another point in the program, with a slight bow to the royal box, Giuseppe (for

Verdi) Arturo (for Toscanini) Alfidi sat down at the piano and expertly played his own 25-minute Concerto in G Minor, dedicated to Queen Elisabeth. Said his proud father, Frank Alfidi, standing in the wings: “It’s the first time an American boy plays for royalty.”

It was not, of course, the first time that Joey Alfidi of Yonkers, N.Y. had conducted a symphony orchestra (he made his first major solo flight at seven with the Symphony of the Air), nor the first time he has played one of his numerous compositions. In Brussels, where he was introduced by his father as the “new little Mozart.” he attracted a capacity crowd. As usual, he conducted incisively and with note-perfect memory of the scores. His own concerto strongly, if somewhat naively, reflected the influence of Beethoven, was studded with technical tricks that suggested a surprisingly wide knowledge of piano literature. While critics spoke cautiously of “an inspiration that is still embryonic,” the audience gave Joey a standing ovation.

In addition to conducting, Joey plays half a dozen instruments, has written one symphony, eleven sonatinas, two sonatas, two piano concertos, two overtures, a tone poem, a rondo and a rhapsody. His problem just now is to determine whether he wants to be a composer, a conductor or a concert pianist. “Well,” says Papa Alfidi calmly, “look at Lenny Bernstein. What is he?”