[Dixielandjazz] stuff like The Mysterious Pianist in Britain

[Charles Suhor]

Just a note to Steve and others to say that the various pieces like the 
Brad Mehldau/Renée Fleming concert and the Doctor John review and the 
odd story below are much appreciated. It's good to be kept current on 
OKOM and non-OKOM happenings, and I'm guessing that those who aren't 
interested can delete them without pain. Thanks.

Charlie Suhor

On May 18, 2005, at 10:28 AM, Steve barbone wrote:

> John Farrell, who is this pianist? John Galt?
>
> Maybe a visit and a rendition of "Maple Leaf Rag" would bring him out 
> of his
> shell. :-) VBG.
>
> Cheers,
> Steve
>
>
> A Silent Man Who Excels at the Piano Baffles Britain
>
> NY Times - By ALAN COWELL May 18, 2005
>
> LONDON, May 17 - The eyes seem soft and scared and peer from the 
> photograph
> of a blond man clutching what may be a musical score. Beyond that not 
> too
> much is known about this enigmatic figure who may be in his 20's or 
> 30's and
> may be English or not - save that he plays the piano with ease and
> confidence.
>
> The newspapers call him the Piano Man.
>
> Since early April, medical authorities in southeast England have been 
> caring
> for a man around six feet tall who was found wandering on a beach in 
> damp
> clothes on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. He was wearing a dark suit - 
> some
> say a tuxedo - and a white shirt. The labels had been cut from his 
> clothes
> so they offered no clues to his identity, according to Adrian Lowther, 
> a
> spokesman for the hospital authority caring for the mysterious man.
>
> He may, some newspapers have speculated, be an asylum seeker who had 
> removed
> all forms of identity; he may be a man suffering from amnesia after a
> terrible shock of some kind - a loss, a death. But none of that can be
> confirmed because he has not spoken or communicated in words - spoken 
> or
> written - since he was found.
>
> All that is known, Mr. Lowther said on Tuesday, is that when the 
> people who
> cared for him gave him a pencil and paper in early April, he drew a 
> grand
> piano casting a deep shadow. And when they took him to a piano in a 
> hospital
> chapel he was transformed, playing fluently in what seemed a classical
> style.
>
> "The only people who have heard him play are a select number of people
> caring for him and they are not classical music experts," Mr. Lowther 
> said,
> commenting on reports in British newspapers that the man played a 
> range of
> music from Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" to Lennon and McCartney.
>
> Some people, thus, have likened his experience to that of the pianist 
> David
> Helfgott, portrayed in the 1996 movie "Shine" as interrupted by mental
> illness.
>
> He is, Mr. Lowther said, shy in the extreme. "If you went into a room 
> with
> him he would shy away," he said. "It is likely that he would hide 
> under the
> covers. He will not engage with anyone."
>
> Interpreters fluent in Latvian, Polish and Lithuanian have visited him
> without eliciting a response. His photograph has been circulated by
> newspapers in Sweden. Almost 400 people have contacted a help line for
> missing people (+44-500-700-700) but none have provided a definitive
> identity.
>
> There is, of course, the delicate question of whether the man is a 
> bona fide
> patient, although that issue may arise in the future. "We have got 
> nothing
> to suggest" that he is not a genuine case, Mr. Lowther said. "And we 
> have a
> duty of care to look after him until something suggests otherwise."
>
> It is possible, too, that the man may never be identified.
>
> Indeed, said Michael Camp, a social worker assigned to the man, "if 
> nobody
> can name this guy, then I don't see how we can possibly find out" who 
> he
> really is.
>
>
>
>
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