‘Just A Closer Walk with Thee,'” Whitaker said, identifying a song he heard. But as they walked around, Alfonsi noticed Whitaker was able to cut through the sensory assault and identify songs in seconds. Whitaker, Alfonsi and her crew negotiated their way through the thick roux of humidity, suffocating crowds and the 14 stages of music that often boil over into the fairgrounds. “But, you know, once I started playin’, I felt good.” “Honestly, I was a tiny bit nervous,” Whitaker said. But even with all his talent, Whitaker said he still feels some nerves before a big show. The sheer complexity and spontaneity of his sets make the most seasoned musicians sweat and jazz fans go wild. Whitaker plays with his shoes off so he can feel the pedals and his head turned so he can feel the crowd. Like, this is where jazz started,” Whitaker told 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi. This past spring, Whitaker made his first appearance at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. It’s acoustic acrobatics performed over 88 keys and it is not for the faint of heart. Twisting melodies, crafting complex harmonies and improvising at lightning speed. Whitaker doesn’t just play music, he plays with it. He’s been called a prodigy and his talent is so extraordinary he’s also caught the attention of scientists who are now studying his brain and trying to understand his vision of music. Matthew is a jazz pianist who is blind, and since the age of 11, he’s been performing around the world. He may be blind, but a neuroscientist has found Whitaker’s visual cortex goes into overdrive when he plays.Įvery so often, someone so young does something so amazing you can’t help but wonder, how do they do that? That’s what happened the first time we heard Matthew Whitaker play piano. “He did tell me that many people have to die to become famous, well my beautiful boy, here we are.Matthew Whitaker has been rocking crowds with his improvisational piano playing for most of his short life. Little did he know he was actually composing his own funeral song. “He was so full of life, with a beautiful mind, and passion for classical music. On Facebook, Amanda also responded to the musicians saying, “ would have been so chuffed that all these wonderful people are now playing his music. “It makes me see beauty through adversity.” “I am extremely humbled by the responses of people,” Amanda told. And now members of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra have released a performance of the full work. So far Kyan’s piece has received video performances on the piano, cello, and on various music softwares. “He imagined it to be performed by wind and string instruments, and of course his beloved piano.” “This was just the intro, it is unfinished, he was building up to a grand midsection and then would do an ending, but he never got to complete what was in his mind’s eye. “If I remember rightly he told me about this and there were bits that repeated, and changed tempo, with light and shade, but he didn’t write that down. In her post, Brierley also explained, “he wasn’t formally trained in reading/writing music, all self taught so could be wrong, I don’t know. It didn’t take long before musicians began responding to the post, which has now received over 150 comments, and 115 shares, with renditions of Kyan’s composition. Kyan Pennell performs Chopin’s Fantaisie-Impromptu “It would mean the world to us to hear his composition.” “I never heard what he was composing.” Kyan’s mother Amanda Brierley posted on Facebook, sharing a copy of his manuscript, “Is there anyone that can read music and play it and send it to us? When his parents were going through their late son’s belongings, they were surprised to discover an unfinished composition in the middle of a blank exercise book. Unbeknownst to his parents, Kyan had also begun composing classical music prior to his death. He loved classical music, and Brierley shared on Facebook that he even learned non-classical pieces just so he could “bring a crowd in, and then educate them the beauty of classical music”. Kyan was neurodiverse, and his family described his diagnosis as a ‘superpower’ which helped him to focus on and achieve whatever he put his mind to. Kyan tragically died in a freak accident caused by a gate closure on his family’s property in Mary Valley on 31 January 2022. He scrimped and saved in order to buy his first piano, and by using YouTube tutorials, he had soon learned to play 30 pieces of classical music by memory, including Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu, and Beethoven’s Für Elise. Seven months ago, 12-year-old Kyan Pennell from Brisbane, Australia, began teaching himself music theory, performance and composition.
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