Tony DeBlois Concert

Tonight we had the privilege of attending a free concert of Tony DeBlois, a 41-year-old pianist who is blind, autistic, and has Savant Syndrome. In fact, doctors consider him a 'prodigious savant,' of which there are only about 100 people in the world.

Besides piano, Tony enjoys playing 22 other instruments, among them the organ, harmonica, guitar, harpsichord, English handbells, violin, banjo, drums, saxophone, clarinet, ukulele, mandolin flute and trumpet. He has a repertoire of more than 10,000 songs and sings in 11 languages!

With Grampa Neil available to babysit the two middle tykes, the baby and I got to attend this concert with Chris and the two oldest, and getting out of the house for an interesting event was such a breath of fresh air for me.

Babies bring glory to God!

The children loved this concert and it was the first time they requested to purchase a CD (which we did). Song requests were taken from the audience and placed in a basket, then pulled out by his mother to read to Tony. It was increasingly amazing and fun to see how Tony (1) knew them all and (2) began playing the music even before his mother finished announcing the title.

I find the brain, in its normalcy, its deficits, and its extraordinary brilliance one of the most fascinating subjects in the world. This little article on the ten most interesting prodigious savants leads one of many rabbit trails of reading. (If this stuff grips you like it does me, check out the many books by the recently deceased Dr. Oliver Sacks.)

You can learn more about this remarkable human, Tony DeBlois, being at his website.