Tony DeBlois | |
---|---|
Birth name | Anthony Thomas DeBlois |
Born | January 22, 1974 |
Genres | Jazz |
Occupation(s) | Musician |
Instrument(s) | Piano |
Anthony Thomas "Tony" DeBlois is a blind American autistic savant and musician.
Tony DeBlois was born on January 22, 1974. Weighing less than two pounds, he was premature and had to be supplied with large amounts of oxygen. Large amounts of oxygen cause blindness, and the physicians during this time were unaware of this. Consequently, Tony became blind at just a few days old. He began to play piano at the age of two. At first, DeBlois studied in the Texas School for the Blind in Austin, Texas, then the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston, Massachusetts, but in 1989 was awarded a summer scholarship at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Later, he was admitted as a full-time student and graduated magna cum laude in 1996. [1] [2]
DeBlois specializes in jazz but can play just about any other type of music as well. A savant, he plays 20 musical instruments and has held concerts worldwide but also has his own band, Goodnuf. He can play about 8,000 pieces from memory. [3]
A TV movie was made on Tony DeBlois' life, entitled Journey of the Heart (1997) starring Cybill Shepherd as Janice DeBlois, Jeremy Lelliott / Chris Demetral (as young Tony), Blake Heron as Tony's younger brother Ray, and with an appearance of Tony DeBlois himself playing piano at the end of the movie. It was produced by Ronnie D. Clemmer and Richard P. Kughn. [4]
Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s and has been called the "Father of the Texas Blues".
Leroy Anderson was an American composer of short, light concert pieces, many of which were introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Fiedler. John Williams described him as "one of the great American masters of light orchestral music."
William Alan Finn is an American composer and lyricist. He is best known for his musicals, which include Falsettos, for which he won the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical, A New Brain (1998), and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005).
"Chopsticks" is a simple, widely known waltz for the piano. Written in 1877, it is the only published piece by the British composer Euphemia Allen. Allen—whose brother, Mozart Allan, was a music publisher—was sixteen when she composed the piece, with arrangements for solo and duet. The title "Chop Waltz" comes from Allen's specification that the melody be played in two-part harmony with both hands held in a vertical orientation, little fingers down and palms facing each other, striking the keys with a chopping motion. The similar "The Coteletten Polka" also was first heard in 1877, with the piano collection Paraphrases elaborating on the theme by 1879.
Leslie Lemke is a blind American savant who is most notable for his work as a musician.
Derek Paravicini is an English autistic savant known as a musical prodigy. He resides in London.
Stephen Flaherty is an American composer of musical theatre and film. He works most often in collaboration with the lyricist/book writer Lynn Ahrens. They are best known for writing the Broadway musicals Ragtime, which was nominated for thirteen Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and won the Tony for Best Original Score; Once on This Island, which won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, the Olivier Award for London's Best Musical, and was nominated for a Grammy Award and eight Tony Awards; and Seussical, which was nominated for the Grammy Award. Flaherty was also nominated for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for his songs and song score for the animated film musical Anastasia.
Matthew Savage Post is an American autistic savant musician.
Bruce Katz is an American musician, playing piano, organ and bass guitar. From 1996 to 2010, he was on the faculty at the Berklee College of Music in Boston as an associate professor. He founded his own musical group, the Bruce Katz Band in 1991 and has recorded and toured with that band to the present. He has also recorded and toured with many other well-known artists in the Blues, Jazz and Rock music world.
The CatholicTV Network, commonly known as CatholicTV, is a Catholic television network based in Watertown, Massachusetts. CatholicTV first launched locally in Boston in 1955, making it the oldest Catholic television network in the United States. Today, it is distributed on cable television systems, internet television, and broadcast stations in sixteen U.S. states and the U.S. Virgin Islands and now worldwide.
Robert L. Freedman is an American screenwriter and dramatist. He is best known for his teleplays for Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (1997) and Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), and for his Tony-winning book and lyrics of A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (2014).
Jonathan Cohler is an American classical clarinetist, conductor, music educator and record producer.
Nobuyuki Tsujii is a Japanese pianist and composer. He was born blind due to microphthalmia. Tsujii performs extensively, with a large number of conductors and orchestras, and has received critical acclaim for his unique techniques for learning music and performing with an orchestra while being unable to see.
Musical Minds is a Nova documentary based on neurologist Oliver Sacks's 2007 book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain about music and the human brain aired on June 30, 2009 on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
Jonathan Alfred Clawson Redford is an American composer, arranger, orchestrator, and conductor. He is also the author of Welcome All Wonders: A Composer's Journey.
Zach Woodlee is an American choreographer and dancer. He was choreographer and co-producer of the TV series Glee. He has choreographed many other films such as Hairspray and Bedtime Stories.
Rex Lewis-Clack is an American pianist, considered a prodigious musical savant.
Douglas Besterman is an American orchestrator, musical arranger and music producer. He is the recipient of three Tony Awards out of six total nominations and two Drama Desk Awards out of six total nominations, and was a 2009 Grammy Award nominee.
Bill Elliott is an American pianist, bandleader, Hollywood composer and Broadway orchestrator. In 2015, he won a Tony Award for best orchestration for the Broadway musical, An American in Paris. In 2012 he was nominated for both Tony and Grammy awards for Broadway's Nice Work if You Can Get It. Elliott won Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations in 2017 for the Broadway Musical Bandstand.
Kodi Taehyun Lee is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, and savant. At 22, he rose to fame on the 14th season of America's Got Talent.
El Paso Times, Sept. 20, 1980