"You can't take his picture now -- his shirt is dirty!" exclaims Tyler's mother Vanessa Ladson as she greets a writer and photographer.

During performances, though, the African-American boy -- who is gaining renown for singing folk songs and opera selections in Chinese -- is focused and resolute. Once he's out the door, his mother and his music teacher, Sherlyn Chew, agree, "He's all 9-year-old boy."

Tyler whizzes down the banister after rehearsal, runs across the pavement and takes a spill, but pulls himself together, unhurt. "Tyler, chill," his mother says. "No more sugar for you today."

Like many talented youngsters, Tyler can appear to be going in several directions at once. Chew recognized his singing ability not long after he arrived at Lincoln School in Oakland's Chinatown. He's now in the fourth grade there -- one of the few non-Asian students.

"I realized Tyler's talent when he was in kindergarten," says Chew. "He had an angelic voice, a wide range and a natural affinity for timing and beat."

He was a treasured addition to Chew's school program, which teaches youngsters to sing and play Chinese music -- singing in the chorus until they're old enough to manipulate Chinese instruments. Tyler, with the help of tape recordings that his teacher prepared, seemed to have no trouble learning to sing in Chinese.

In the second grade, Tyler sang a Chinese folk song at Lincoln School's annual concert. "People cried," Chew recalls.

Since then, he has gone on to perform at Oakland City Hall, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and the California State Fair. Saturday afternoon he will sing a traditional folk song accompanied by a group of five musicians at the San Francisco Symphony's Chinese New Year concert.

In between concerts have been news reports that delight in his matter-of-fact, cross-cultural musical talent.

Here's the way Tyler tells it: "Mainly, I just like singing," he says. "Then, at my first concert in 2003, in our cafeteria at school, I though, wow, this may be my only concert. Then the Wall Street Journal came out, then more concerts, then CNN next, then more concerts. And I thought, this is one big business!"

He might even get to go to China, to appear in a program with other non-Chinese performers who sing and play Chinese music. "I can't wait to see what kind of money they use over there," he says, with an expression of determined curiosity.

Inside the rehearsal room, dozens of young musicians play the introduction to the piece Tyler will sing Saturday night; they comprise an orchestra of Chinese instruments plus a few cellos. He slumps in an orange plastic chair in front of them, yawns and rubs his face, but when it's time to sing, he's on his feet, calm and serious beside conductor Wan Peng Guo.

Other classrooms in the Laney College complex on this Saturday are filled with youngsters learning to play Chinese instruments, and Tyler is not the only cross-cultural performer. In one room, a group playing guitarlike stringed instruments harmonizes on "O Sole Mio."

Nearby, Chew responds to a question about the boy's future as a performer.

"My goal is not to turn out musicians," she says. "My goal is for them to enjoy music. And music is important for their learning." It's very much about discipline, she explains, noting all the children performing together in groups. "You have to listen to yourself and listen to others. You can't be early, and you can't be late. You can't be too fast or too slow."

For Tyler, concerts bring forth conflicting emotions. "Usually before it happens, I just want to get this over with," he says, "so I'm feeling all confident. And then -- oh, shoot -- I can't do this!" But audiences, his teacher and his mother are awed by his performances.

"I believe he's going to be a singer of some kind," says Ladson, who works a few blocks from Lincoln Elementary at the East Bay Municipal Utilities District headquarters. What kind of singer? "It would be up to him."

He likes "some of the hip-hop stuff they're doing," she says, as well as gospel; one of his favorite performers is gospel singer Kirk Franklin. Tyler and his mother attend Lily of the Valley Christian Center in Oakland, and he sometimes sings there, but not in the church choir.

Hip-hop, gospel, Chinese folk songs and opera melodies aren't even the extent of this 9-year-old's musical interests. He has worked out tunes on an electronic keyboard at home, and, says his mother, he's reached the age where he's drumming on every surface around the house. "I'm going to have to buy him a set of drums," she said, with joyful resignation.