BTW, she only has four (4) fingers...
A 7-year-old girl with only two fingers on each hand should be thrilled at the idea that someday she might be able to tap out a simple children's tune on the piano.
At least, that's what Woodrow (Wooj) Byun of Edina would have thought -- until recently. Then one night last April, he ran across a YouTube video of Hee Ah Lee, a young four-fingered Korean pianist. Her hands were flying over the keys in Chopin's "Fantasie-Impromptu."
Hee Ah Lee's music brings tears to many listeners' eyes. But Byun was especially moved, he says. He had been searching the world for a performer just like her.
Byun could not have guessed then that on Sunday he would be introducing Hee Ah Lee to the people of Minnesota at a concert at Hopkins High School Auditorium.
Byun and Hee Ah Lee, now 23, came together by a circuitous path. Byun practices law in Edina. In 1990, he came to America from Korea to attend the University of Minnesota Law School on a Rotary Club International Ambassadorial Scholarship. Since then, he has stayed close to his homeland's culture, helping out at an annual culture camp for Korean adoptees at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis.
There, last year, Byun noticed a young boy with short arms and malformed fingers. He was touched by seeing the boy's challenges as he interacted with other children.
"I couldn't get his image out of my mind," says Byun. "I thought, Is there any way I can help him, any inspiration I can give him? I had to find out -- has any one with a similar condition achieved great things?"
So Byun began the search that eventually led him to Hee Ah Lee. She has a condition called phocomelia, which involves abnormally shaped limbs - in her case, only two fingers per hand and no legs below her knees.
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