It seems incredible-until we begin to consider how rare his talent truly is. Having once heard a piece, he simply never forgets it. Today, Leslie’s musical repertoire seems bottomless and his talent endless. It was then the miracle of Leslie’s talent came into “full bloom,” according to May.
#Autistic piano prodigy movie
1 after hearing it for the first time on the sound track of a movie he had listened to with his family earlier that evening. In fact that is what caught May’s attention late one night when he played back Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. Leslie can play back a musical piece of any length flawlessly after hearing it once. While Leslie has spasticity in his hands, which makes it difficult to even hold eating utensils, that spasticity disappears when he sits at the keyboard.
Yet, although he has never had a lesson in his life, Leslie’s piano skills are innate and extensive. Leslie grew up blind and cognitively disabled. But May Lemke was determined that Leslie would live. He was given up for adoption by his mother and placed in the care of May Lemke, a nurse-governess, in a sort of hospice-type arrangement. A profoundly ill baby, Leslie was not expected to live more than a few months. Because of his premature birth, Leslie developed retinopathy and had to have his eyes surgically removed during the first several months of life. Leslie was born in 1952 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But I was working in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health when I got to know Leslie and his incredible story. Today I’m a research consultant on autism at St. I’ve been engaged in savant syndrome research since 1962, writing and publishing widely on the subject, participating in numerous broadcast and documentary productions, even consulting for the movie Rain Man. Leslie’s talent stems from a rare but remarkable condition called savant syndrome in which a person with an underlying disability such as autism or other central nervous system illness or injury also has some extraordinary ability that stands in stark contrast to their overall handicap. That concert was my introduction to an extraordinary man and his surprising talent. On a warm summer night in June of 1980, Leslie Lemke gave a piano concert in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.
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