DON’T “BLOW IT,” SAYS THE TEACHER ENTRUSTED WITH THE JAZZ STAR’S TALENT

Matthew Whitaker plays for Sharyn Alfonsi.

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Matthew Whitaker, the star jazz pianist, has dazzled audiences for years, playing in more than 200 clubs and concert halls around the world. A big reason for his success is a conscientious teacher named Dalia Sakas, who guided the 18-year-old blind prodigy to the highest reaches of his talents. She tells Sharyn Alfonsi teaching Whitaker was both exhausting and scary because “you didn’t want to blow it. You didn’t want to mess up. Someone of this talent, this creativity, this enthusiasm. He’s obviously got something to offer the world. And you want to make that possible.” Whitaker’s profile will be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Feb. 23 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Whitaker’s parents, Moses and May, had trouble finding a teacher for their son in his early years; some said he was too young and others were reluctant to take on a blind child. Sakas is a concert pianist and the director of music studies at the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School in New York City, a school for the visually impaired. She agreed to start teaching him when he was 5 years old.

Sakas recognized Whitaker’s extraordinary talent when her new student came to a lesson after attending a recital in which she performed a complicated piano piece. “He comes in Saturday morning. I walk into the studio, and he’s playing the opening of the Dvorak Quintet…then the cello comes in and he knew that whole thing,” she says of the boy’s remarkable ability to hear something just once – especially a complicated piece for five instruments – and play all five parts.

Sakas worked diligently with him to make sure his prodigious talent would grow, and she painstakingly helped him learn to read Braille music so he would become a literate musician.

Whitaker was born at just 24 weeks and suffered from retinopathy of prematurity, a condition that often leads to blindness. Matthew played the piano for the first time when he was 3 years old. “It was ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’” says his father, Moses. “But he played it with both hands, the chords and the melody.” As his talent continued to shine brighter, people wondered how he did it. Today there’s evidence suggesting that Whitaker “sees” the music.

Dr. Charles Limb, a musician himself, uses MRI brain scans to better understand how exceptionally creative people do what they do. He found Whitaker’s entire brain, including the part normally used for vision, engaged by music. “His visual cortex is activated throughout. It seems like his brain is taking that part of the tissue that’s not being stimulated by sight and using it or maybe helping him to perceive music with it,” says Limb.

Whitaker’s latest album is called Now Hear This. One critic who reviewed it said it sounds like the musician is “playing with six hands.”

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