内容摘要：In a statement issued by a family member, Sam's parents Jo and Andrew said they were "devastated".

In a statement issued by a family member, Sam's parents Jo and Andrew said they were "devastated".

The schoolboy added: "When I'm playing I'm thinking about stories."With Rachmaninoff it's like a big adventure story where people are having to sacrifice something.

"In my mind it's like pictures, stories, lots of different colours all that sort of stuff."His music teacher Dom Carter said River's talent was beyond anything he had ever seen for his age."I've been teaching for 16 years and I have never met a pianist of this skill at this age," he said.

"It's remarkable. River is working on grade seven and grade eight pieces at the age of eleven."He is so focussed he has just shot up through the grades. Not that it is about grades for him, he just loves playing."

River's mum Laura said neither she nor her husband were musical and their son's talent came as a surprise.

She said: "It makes your skin go all tingly when you hear him play because he has such musicality that gives emotion to whatever he is playing."If we had any problems at all it was… we couldn't communicate well when we disagreed about something," she said.

"We would just feel hurt and not know how to resolve it."She also told the court about the traumatic birth of her first child in 2009, less than a year before the couple's first break.

"He started to go into distress and they lost his heartbeat," she said.Her voice choking up, she explained doctors performed an emergency caesarean to get her son out quickly.