Gifted musician Jude Richardson taught himself how to read music and play piano with the help of his mother.

Now, after four years of formal training and a host of live performances, the Bermuda College student and aspiring professional pianist has his sights set on studying music at university.

Jude, 17, said: “It is going to be a pretty heavy course load, but I am used to working hard. I love working.”

Jude said his love of music evolved out of curiosity because he was fascinated by his mother’s ability to play the piano.

He explained: “I remember when I was 7 and I was asking her how could she do that. She was not a professional, she didn’t take lessons, but she knew how to read notes.

“She taught me how to read basic notes, but I quickly found music that she didn’t know all the rules to, or didn’t know all the symbols, so I would look it up or work it out.

“I got more into it, trying to figure out the things that she didn’t know, and after a while I found pieces I really enjoyed playing and I found this love of it.”

Jude, from Warwick, started piano lessons when he was 13, studying under Oliver Grant and Mieri Tsuji-Barbier at the Bermuda School of Music before taking online classes with Alice Ryback, a former professor at the University of Denver.

He said: “Classes have really changed my focus from being an independent musician to a critical one because I have to answer to my teachers.

“Before, I could do whatever I wanted and it didn’t have any implications, but now I have to show them that I can do what they ask of me.”

Jude said he put in between three and five hours of practice a day in addition to school, over the summer months he has notched up eight hours a day at the keyboard.

He added: “It’s always frustrating to do less than four. Less than four is a travesty for a musician.”

Jude, who was home-schooled by mother Dain until he went to Bermuda College last year to study economics and environmental science as well as other subjects, has also put his talent on display at shows and fundraisers over the past four years.

He played at the Premier’s Concert, was guest soloist for Colorado’s Shir Yaffeh Youth Orchestra, and performed at the Crawl Gospel Hall, Marsden Church and Wesley Methodist Church.

He performed a summer recital at Ruth Seaton James Auditorium this year and tackled pieces by Bach, Beethoven and Liszt, among others.

He said his first experiences on stage were “absolutely terrifying” and admitted he did not know how to focus.

“I played Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu at my first performance, which is a very fast piece but I thought I knew it very well.

“In the practice room I played it very quickly, and I was very proud of it, but when I went out on the stage and I performed, in my opinion it completely fell apart.

“The adrenalin completely changed the performance.”

He added: “Even now when there’s applause, there are two things always running through my mind.

“There’s an exhilaration when I can see people appreciate what I have done and they enjoyed the sound and the emotion, but there’s also the part of me that is a perfectionist critiquing what I have just done.

“I immediately want to rush to the practice room and fix things.

“When you perform, you really see what you need to work on. It is a real eye-opener.”

Jude said: “A lot of people listen to music in a very casual way, which is great, but for me as a musician it really parallels life experience.

“After a while, you start to relate pieces to personal experiences.

“I think that is why I love music and what keeps me coming back to it. You are using your personal experiences and this depth of feeling that you have for the piece to create a performance that has depth and meaning for other people.

“I love that connection between the musician and the listener, and the ability to really influence how someone feels and helps them explore things they might have been ignoring. It’s incredible.”

Jude is now preparing for auditions for university — but added he hoped to take a minor or second major in political or environmental economics.

And he is also looking to fund some of his musical training through The Trust for All the Arts, a Bermuda-registered charity that collects funds on behalf of young artists.