"I was struck by the absolute ease lie possessed at the piano," says Fort Worth conductor Harth-Bedoya, who asked Golka to play in a private audition at the Cliburn Recital Hall downtown earlier this spring. Several local musicians whom Harth-Bedoya trusts had recommended that he listen to Golka.

   "He played anything I asked him to play perfectly," recalls Harth-Bedoya, who promptly invited Golka to appear on the summer series and asked him to choose whatever he wanted to play. Golka selected the notoriously difficult Piano Concerto No. 3 of Rachmaninoff, with its swirling handfuls of notes.

      The Dallas engagement came about as the result of Golka taking top prize in the Lynn Harrell Competition for Young Artists in 2003; the prize includes an engagement with the Dallas Symphony. Choosing a concerto for that concert took a little more negotiating than the selection in Fort Worth: Prokofiev's Second, which Golka had performed in the competition, was considered a little too dark for the summer series, and British pianist Stephen Hough was already scheduled to perform Rachmaninoff's Third just a few weeks earlier.

     Golka had never tried to learn Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1, but he was so confident in his ability to pick it up quickly that he agreed to add that virtuoso showpiece to his repertoire just for this concert.

     Though he was born in Houston, Golka's story goes back to Mexico and Poland. His mother, Anna Golka, is a pianist, and his father, George Golka, was trained as a professional trombonist; both were born and educated in Poland. Watching a deteriorating. seemingly hopeless situation in Poland in the early 1980s they took the chance to move to Mexico when George Golka was offered a job with the Veracruz Symphony.

     When economic conditions ended the possibility of earning a living there, the Golkas decided to take a chance on political asylum in the United States.

"It took lots of lawyers and lots of money," Anna Golka says.

     Settling in the large Polish American community in Houston, Anna Golka set up a private piano studio, and George Golka retrained as a piano technician.

     The arrival of Adam brought a new element into their lives, however, as they quickly discovered his perfect pitch, his nearly photographic memory - and his passion for music.

     When he was 15, Adam moved to Fort Worth and entered the artist diploma program at TCU. Requirements are almost entirely in applied music, with mandatory recital performances, chamber music and accompanying, and little actual academic classroom work.

     "It was terrible for my motherly instinct," Anna Golka says. "He couldn't cook. I was afraid he couldn't take care of himself But I know it was for his own good:'

     One of Adam Golka's older brothers, conductor Tomasz Golka, stayed with him in his Fort Worth apartment for half a year to help him settle in.  

     So far, Adam Golka, who still speaks Polish fluently, has honored the trust his parents put in him.

     But Feghali also pinpoints a particular character trait that may pro vide the push that turns the prodigy into a great musician. "He's not satisfied just to learn a piece of music," says Feghali, who was Golka's private teacher. "He studies it at all levels. He has an insatiable curiosity and capacity for music. He learns what I can teach him, then he always goes a step further by himself".