By Kevin Shalvey
Staff Writer

Aubrie Compitello, 18, teaches Jack Hamilton, 8, of Bedford, to play piano. Compitello will perform a concert Monday, Nov. 6, at the Manchester Library Auditorium. With her students, she plays beginner’s songs, such as “Bells of Great Britain.” Hamilton is one of 11 of Compitello’s students. “He’s very accelerated,” she said. (The Bedford Bulletin/Kevin Shalvey)

If Aubrie Compitello’s hands were a bit bigger, she would love to play a composition by Rachmaninoff during a concert.

“My hands are just too small,” the 18-year-old pianist from Bedford said. “With Rachmaninoff, he could stretch his hands over an octave. His hands were just huge.”

Playing the composer’s music in concert, Compitello said she might not play them well enough, though his works are some of her favorites. Or, she could hurt her hands just by practicing the compositions incorrectly.

When she performs, Compitello plays pieces by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and Copeland, a sampling of music she will perform at the Manchester Library Auditorium on Monday, Nov. 6., from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m.

Her love of music trickled down from her father’s side of the family.

Her grandmother, “Dottie” Compitello, played and sang jazz music, and her father, Michael, was her first piano teacher. Though Compitello said she loves jazz, she is sticking to the classics for now.

“When I started out, my dad said I should learn the classics first,” she said. “He said it was good to learn the basics first. Now, I love them.”

Learning to play the piano isn’t easy, and Compitello had to choose it over other activities. She played soccer for Manchester West High School until she was a sophomore, but decided she didn’t have enough time to practice piano. So she left organized soccer and often spends time playing the sport with her friends, she said.

Her time is still stretched thin, however.

She teaches piano lessons to 11 local children, teaches Sunday school and is a member of the worship team at the First Assembly of God in Auburn. And, she also takes college courses -- English and psychology -- at New Hampshire Community Technical Institute.

Compitello is currently home-schooled and said she’s getting a head start on her freshman year at NHTI, she said.

Compitello said she hopes to become either a concert pianist or a piano teacher. Her top schools include Yale University School of Music and Cedarville University.

When she was about 7 years old, Compitello said she took piano lessons for about year and stopped. It wasn’t until she was almost 13, when her younger sister started to bang the keys, that Compitello took another look at the piano.

She has been taking classes with Mochi Chan for about three years and attended the Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute youth piano program during the summer of 2005, where she had the chance to learn from the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Although she is looking toward college and a career, Compitello also has short-term goals, and everyday she practices the piano for five hours.

“There are times when I feel like it’s a lot of work,” she said. “Four hours would be an ideal practice time. That would be great. But after that, I make myself go that extra hour. I know I’m going to want to do that fifth hour, and I’m going to want the benefit of that fifth hour.”

Her father said he and her mother Debbie are proud of their daughter.

“We’re all very excited for her,” Michael Compitello said. “She’s been working really hard.”

She is one of six children: Amy, 31, Everett, 19, Aubrie, Annie, 13, Abbie, 11, and Grant, 6. Her younger sisters also study with Chan.

In the small amount of free time that she has, Compitello cooks, plays music with her friends and likes to cook.

“If I wasn’t going to be a pianist, I would want to go to culinary school,” she said. “I just love to cook.”