{"id":237300,"date":"2021-01-02T11:46:24","date_gmt":"2021-01-02T17:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=237300"},"modified":"2021-01-01T21:26:08","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T03:26:08","slug":"blind-premature-jazz-pianist-matthew-whitaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/blind-premature-jazz-pianist-matthew-whitaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Blind from premature birth, jazz pianist Matthew Whitaker is a scientific wonder"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Matthew Whitaker<\/span><\/a> is an extraordinary musician at only 18 years old. He has been delighting listeners and jazz music devotees since the age of 11, has been playing concert halls, and even opened for Stevie Wonder at the age of 10. What’s even more amazing is that Whitaker is completely blind.\u00a0<\/span>Born premature in 2001 at 24 weeks, Whitaker weighed just one pound, 11 ounces at birth. His doctors gave him a 50% chance of survival. His early birth left him with retinopathy of prematurity, and after 11 surgeries, Matthew was still completely blind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the age of three, his grandfather bought him his first keyboard. \u201cHe was playing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ But he was playin’ it with both hands,\u201d Whitaker\u2019s father told <\/span>60 minutes<\/span><\/a>. \u201cMatt was playing the chords and the melody of the song at the same [time.] He hadn’t had a lesson or anything. And he was three years old. So my question was, ‘Okay, who showed him how to do that? Somebody had to show Matthew how to… play this song.’ And nobody showed him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n