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LakeForestLeaderDaily.com LIFE & ARTS
the lake forest leader | November 14, 2019 | 19
Posted to LakeForestLeaderDaily.com 1 day ago
Unlikely musician finds an audience at Gorton
Katie Copenhaver
Freelance Reporter
To say that the human
spirit is resilient and
that you can pursue your
dreams at any age sound
like common clichés. However,
when you meet someone
who wholly embodies
these life lessons, they suddenly
take on a profound
meaning.
The documentary-inprogress,
“Left-Handed
Pianist,” introduces us to
Norman Malone, who at 82
years old is finally fulfilling
his childhood dream,
having overcome daunting
challenges.
The Gorton Community
Center held a screening and
panel discussion about the
film on Sunday, Nov. 10, to
a sold-out audience in the
John and Nancy Hughes
Theater. “Left-Handed Pianist”
is a production of Kartemquin
Films, the awardwinning
Chicago-based
nonprofit film organization,
and this presentation was
the final 2019 installment
of the “Kartemquin Presents”
series at Gorton.
“Their documentaries
are so thought-provoking,”
said Jamie Hall, director of
film for Gorton. “It’s amazing
to be involved with
Kartemquin.”
This event included the
screening of a demo trailer
and excerpts from the
film, a live piano performance
by Malone and the
panel discussion featuring
Malone, Producer/Writer/
Arts Critic Howard Reich,
Producer and Lake Forest
resident Diane Quon, Director/Executive
Producer
Gordon Quinn and Director
Leslie Simmer. It was moderated
by Jason Stephens,
the film’s associate producer
as well as a lecturer
in the Arts, Entertainment
and Media Management
Department at Columbia
College Chicago.
Malone’s story, as told in
“Left-Handed Pianist,” is
that his musical talent had
emerged by the time he was
5 years old. His family had
a piano in their home from
early on where he practiced
his playing. Unfortunately,
his father suffered from
mental illness brought
on by the end stages of
syphilis and one evening
flew into a rage, attacking
10-year-old Norman and
his two younger brothers.
Their father committed suicide
following the attack on
his sons.
“The three of us weren’t
supposed to survive,”
Malone said in the film.
“But, we did.”
Norman’s father hit him
on the head with a hammer,
which left Norman
paralyzed on his right side.
After a long recovery in the
hospital through the spring
and summer of that year,
Malone resumed piano
playing using only his left
hand and foot. He searched
all over the south side of
Chicago for a piano teacher
who would accommodate
his disability, and finally
found one man, Lester
Mather, who was willing
“to take a chance on him,”
said Malone.
That early training and
desire led Malone to college
at DePaul University,
where he studied voice and
piano. He explained in the
panel discussion following
the film screening that
it took him nine years to
complete his degree because
he worked full-time
at the American Medical
Association and took classes
part-time. He did not
have a scholarship to pay
for his education, so he had
to fund it himself.
Classes in education
were required for his music
degree at DePaul, and
as a result, Malone felt inspired
to become a teacher.
However, one of his teachers
told him that he could
not be a teacher because
he was handicapped. She
told him he would not be
able to walk up and down
stairs to stages and stand
up in front of classes. That
came as a real blow to his
plans and self-esteem as he
approached his graduation.
Nonetheless, he did not
let it keep him down for
long. It just made him more
determined, and he did become
a music teacher in
the Chicago Public Schools
for 34 years. Lincoln Park
High School was among
the schools where he taught
and led an award-winning
student choir.
Several years after
Malone’s retirement, Chicago
Tribune Arts Critic
Howard Reich learned
about his piano playing
from a chance encounter.
Reich was joined at a restaurant
before a concert by
two of Malone’s apartment
building neighbors who
told Reich about Malone’s
skillful piano playing. That
led to an introduction between
Reich and Malone.
Reich then discovered
that Malone had been practicing
piano concertos written
specifically for the left
hand for years by Brahms,
Prokofiev, Bartok, Britten,
and his favorite piece,
Maurice Ravel’s “Piano
Concerto for the Left
Hand.” He had never told
his students or colleagues
in the schools about this or
about how he had become
paralyzed.
Reich wrote a series of
Norman Malone, of Chicago, performs for the audience Sunday, Nov. 10, at the Gorton
Community Center. Malone was paralyzed in an attack when he was a child and
plays with only his left hand. Photos by Alex Newman/22nd Century Media
articles on Malone for the
Chicago Tribune in 2015,
which led to invitations for
Malone to perform. The
most significant of those
came from West Hartford,
Connecticut Symphony
Orchestra Music Director
Richard Chiarappa asking
Malone to play the Ravel
piano concerto with them
in 2016. It would be the
first time Malone, who was
79 at the time, ever publicly
played with an orchestra.
Kartemquin began filming
this story with that
2016 performance when
Reich suggested to Quon
that this could be made into
a documentary, which they
expect complete in early
2020. The plan is to submit
it to a few film festivals and
hopefully also to PBS for
broadcast.
“It’s a deeper dive about
how music inspires us,”
said Simmer.
“By the time we’re done,
we’ll have all these parallel
stories,” said Quinn,
referring to a part about
Chicagoan Norman Malone, who was paralyzed in an
attack when he was a child, gives a piano concert with
only his left hand.
Malone’s piano teacher
Mather and the importance
of arts programming in
public schools.
For his performance at
Gorton, Malone played
parts of the Ravel concerto,
a ragtime piece for left
hand that he commissioned
from a contemporary composer
and a piece written
by another composer for
his daughter.
The audience included
one of Malone’s brothers
and three of his former students,
who were all mentioned
during the Q&A
portion of the panel discussion.
“Music programs [in
public schools] have been
cut back. It’s a tragedy,”
said Malone.
More information about
the documentary and how
to financially contribute to
its production is available
at normanmalonefilm.com.