Maestro Hector Olivera invited 8-year-old Nykoda Icke on stage to his organ bench after one of Olivera’s recent concerts.
Barely able to reach the pedals, 8-year-old Nykoda Icke started to play the organ alongside his hero. Then as the song went on, Maestro Hector Olivera, a child prodigy organist in his day, pressed the organ pedals for him.
“It's just really was unbelievable,” Olivera tells Inside Edition Digital from his home in Sarasota, Florida. "With one hand, he's trying to do the best to play. With the left hand, he is doing what the pedal is supposed to do. The sound that was coming out of the organ was very darn close to what is supposed to really be with two hands and pedals."
The video posted on TikTok has more than four million views.
The moment reminded Olivera of a similar experience with his mentor when he was first starting out. "Seeing Nykoda doing that, it just triggers immediately that memory," he says. "It was a very rewarding moment for me."
Born in Buenos Aires, at age 5, Olivera played for the famous Argentine politician Eva Perón months before her death. Now, he’s a world-renowned musician.
Olivera invited Nykoda on stage to his organ bench after one of Olivera’s recent concerts. “We thought we were just going to meet him and talk to him. But then he got asked to play a piece for the maestro, and it was crazy,” Nykoda’s mom, Maraynna, tells Inside Edition Digital.
Usually Olivera discourages this type of practice. “Imagine Yo Yo Ma playing a concert and then somebody says, ‘Oh, my 8-year-old kid playing cello.’ Or having Leonard Bernstein leave the podium and somebody comes up and starts conducting. I won't do it to others and I hope they don't do it to me. But this obviously I can sense was a very special situation. So I immediately, I invited him,” Olivera explains.
The opportunity was well beyond what the impressionable child could've ever dreamt of happening.
“Mind blown,” Nykoda says of the experience of a lifetime. He only started playing the organ nine months ago and, based on videos posted on TikTok by his mom, he has a natural talent for it.
Olivera agrees. “I think he has the talent and the potential.” he says firmly.
When Nykoda was 6 months old, he was diagnosed with bilateral retinoblastoma, cancer of the retina. He had his eyes removed and lost his sight. He now walks with a cane.
Since he cannot see, music fills his soul. “I think the loss of sight gives his brain so much space to crave other stimulus and music just kind of fills that void he's looking to fill,” Maraynna says.
At 2 years old, Nykoda sat down at his grandparents’ piano bench and the music consumed him. Every song’s big finish is his favorite part about it.
“He realized that the songs he loved to hear in his movies, he could recreate on the piano. And so that's kind of how it started,” she adds of how her son taught himself to play.
Maestro Olivera has encouraged Nykoda to seek professional training.
“I think he has the talent and the potential to now embark into a serious studying of the organ,” he says.
