BALTIMORE (WJZ) ― The Kennedy Center honors take center stage on CBS Wednesday night. Along with this year's recipients--Steve Martin, Diana Ross and others--is Baltimore-based world renowned pianist Leon Fleisher.
Mary Bubala was invited to his Baltimore home this week and shares his incredible music that almost fell silent.
Baltimore's Leon Fleisher is being honored as one of the world's greatest pianists but also for being able to go on when his right hand would not.
At the height of his career, Fleisher's fingers curled up and stiffened. It was focal dystonia, a neurological disorder which causes his brain to send faulty signals to his fingers to contract.
"I would try every day, I would test it. It came on very mysteriously and always in the back of my heart, I hoped it would go away just as mysteriously. It never did," he said.
Devastated, Fleisher thought his stunning career was over at age 37. It was a dark, depressing time that he somehow dug out of.
"One morning after a couple of years, I just woke up and said, `Enough of this whining and self pity. Music is still there. I just have to find another way.'"
Music filled Fleisher's life again as he turned to conducting and teaching at the Peabody Conservatory. He loved it.
Fleisher also uncovered old piano pieces written for one hand and he started playing for audiences again. He made one triumphant two-handed appearance for the opening of the Meyerhoff in the early 80s, but it wasn't until 2001 that the man, his hands and his music became whole again. A treatment that involved getting botox injections in his hand allowed Fleisher's fingers to loosen up and his left hand finally had its partner back.
The world celebrated with him and now honors him. Fleisher is receiving one of the most prestigious prizes an artist can achieve: the Kennedy Center Honors.
Grateful, humbled and excited at almost 80 years old, Fleisher said it's been a journey he would take again.
"Go with the flow and you have a much bettter chance of finding other solutions. Don't try to turn it back and I found for myself I had such gratification, such satisfaction from the new activities in music. They expanded me in such a way that I would never relinquish that to the point that if I had my life to live over again, I'm not so sure I'd do anything differently."
(Source: MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Mary Bubala was invited to his Baltimore home this week and shares his incredible music that almost fell silent.
Baltimore's Leon Fleisher is being honored as one of the world's greatest pianists but also for being able to go on when his right hand would not.
At the height of his career, Fleisher's fingers curled up and stiffened. It was focal dystonia, a neurological disorder which causes his brain to send faulty signals to his fingers to contract.
"I would try every day, I would test it. It came on very mysteriously and always in the back of my heart, I hoped it would go away just as mysteriously. It never did," he said.
Devastated, Fleisher thought his stunning career was over at age 37. It was a dark, depressing time that he somehow dug out of.
"One morning after a couple of years, I just woke up and said, `Enough of this whining and self pity. Music is still there. I just have to find another way.'"
Music filled Fleisher's life again as he turned to conducting and teaching at the Peabody Conservatory. He loved it.
Fleisher also uncovered old piano pieces written for one hand and he started playing for audiences again. He made one triumphant two-handed appearance for the opening of the Meyerhoff in the early 80s, but it wasn't until 2001 that the man, his hands and his music became whole again. A treatment that involved getting botox injections in his hand allowed Fleisher's fingers to loosen up and his left hand finally had its partner back.
The world celebrated with him and now honors him. Fleisher is receiving one of the most prestigious prizes an artist can achieve: the Kennedy Center Honors.
Grateful, humbled and excited at almost 80 years old, Fleisher said it's been a journey he would take again.
"Go with the flow and you have a much bettter chance of finding other solutions. Don't try to turn it back and I found for myself I had such gratification, such satisfaction from the new activities in music. They expanded me in such a way that I would never relinquish that to the point that if I had my life to live over again, I'm not so sure I'd do anything differently."
(Source: MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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