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Matt Savage Featured on CNN's "Genius" Special
Matt was featured in a documentary on CNN which aired on September 17, 2006 and then again on Thanksgiving Day. The documentary, which was a Special Medical Report, was entitled, “Genius.” In it, Matt was interviewed by Senior Medical Correspondent and Neurosurgeon, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He also performed several original compositions. The documentary featured Matt Savage as one of the phenomenally gifted people who embody the quest for understanding extreme brainpower. Dr. Gupta profiled Matt’s journey from an early diagnosis of autism (and an aversion to music) to aggressive treatment with auditory therapy to his emergence at the age of six and a half with the ability to play the piano. The footage for the special was actually shot in two different locations and at two different times…at our farm in New Hampshire and in New York at the Bösendorfer New York showroom. Matt loved showing off the animals on the farm and showing that he was a regular kid during the farm visit. He played the piano, played with his sister and pointed out to the camera people that as the two siblings were playing Frisbee, Matt was standing on one side of the 43rd Parallel and Rebecca was standing on the other side. The line of Lattitude goes right through our backyard. We additionally befriended the Producer of the segment, David Martin. We all enjoyed the home visit very much. The Bösendorfer New York part of the visit was different but equally fun for Matt. He spent time with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the Correspondent for the Special Medical Reports. Both Matt and Dr. Gupta were taken with one another. Dr. Gupta completely enjoyed Matt’s responses to his questions. And when he told Matt that he didn’t know how to play the piano, Matt challenged that he could teach Dr. Gupta to play the piano in 5 minutes. Of course, Dr. Gupta HAD to take up Matt’s challenge and headed to the piano, sitting next to Matt. Matt taught him one note. Then he taught him a rhythm for that note. Then he taught him a second note, teaching him a rhythm for the second note. He had Dr. Gupta put together the two notes by playing things slowly and in sections. After a few minutes, he was playing the two notes in the correct rhythm. Matt smiled and said, “Okay. Now you know how to play jazz.” He sat to the left of Dr. Gupta, encouraging him to play what he had just learned. Matt played the rest. The resulting song (duet) was “C Jam Blues” by Duke Ellington. The whole song was based on just TWO notes. Those two notes were the notes Ellington used to play on the piano to signal his band to come back on stage after intermission. Ellington would sit down and just play those two notes in that rhythm. As the band members would come on stage, they would join in, and it became a song.
Everyone in the room applauded Matt and Dr. Gupta. It was a lot of fun for both of them. Matt’s CNN performances in both NH and NY ranged from an improvisational interpretation of a hurricane to several cuts from “Quantum Leap.” In contrast to the blur of Matt’s hands on the keyboard, his interview with Dr. Gupta was in keeping with the succinct manner in which Matt describes his relationship to his music: “It kind of transfers from the brain to the fingers. It goes through your body. That’s how it feels.” The segment ended on a perfect note. When Dr. Gupta asked Matt “What do you want to do when you grow up?” Matt said simply, “I just want to play jazz.”
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