PIANO prodigy Ben Shattock has just passed a university level exam - even though he's still only 14.

Ben, of Longmead Close, Taunton, sailed through the first of three Trinity College London diplomas in music performance.

The ATCL piano recital is an Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation level four qualification equivalent to the standard reached at the end of the first year of an undergraduate degree.

As an associate of Trinity College, he can now call himself Ben Shattock ATCL.

For the 40-minute exam, he played sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven and a modern jazz piece by Karl Jenkins.

And he has wasted no time starting work on the second diploma, the LTCL piano recital, which will take a couple more years of hard practice to prepare for.

Ben started playing piano at the age of eight.