Destined for Greatness – the link between Autism + Prodigies
“I knew that so many musicians, who had made it to an elaborate level within their music careers, started out as child prodigies. When I heard that 70 percent of the current study cases are music prodigies, it made perfect sense to lend our full support to the cause and at the same time offer performance possibilities for these gifted musicians,” says Baksht. “In addition, our support also ends up helping the less fortunate side of the prodigy/autism equation.” The festival offers concerts, performed by acclaimed and award-winning musicians at a variety of locations, including the Southampton Cultural Center and some unique private estates. This year, the festival’s musicians play in cooperation with some of the prodigies, brought to the festival by Ruthsatz. Their fruitful collaboration has already brought on board Nobel Prize Laureate Jim Watson of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, who now supports Ruthsatz’s research efforts. In addition, the festival will donate a portion of its August concerts’ proceeds to the research. But Berlinsky and Baksht have many more plans for the future, including a teaching program that reaches out to the Hampton community and continues to build on the Festival’s effort of promoting greater exposure to and knowledge of classical music. “The proximity of the festival’s location to New York offers incredible opportunities for us to attract the greatest musicians performing here and Dmitri and I both hope to expand our reputation over time.”
“Many things came together in perfect synergy,” says Baksht, marveling about the musicianship of some of the prodigies – and she is not alone. Renowned Juilliard Professor and pianist, Jerome Loventhal, called 9 year old William Chen’s playing “of astonishing artistic authority, perfectly shaped and voiced.” (On the occasion of his winning First Prize at the Crescendo International Competition, William Chen will perform at the festival on August 19th. (Southampton Cultural Center)
“This intrigued her so she decided to look for autism in her current sample of prodigies,” wrote Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D. in “The mind of the Prodigy” published by Huffington Post. In her study, published in the journal, Intelligence, Ruthsatz and violin virtuoso Jourdan Urbach, a child prodigy himself, involved eight other musical child prodigies, who were eager to help investigate further clues. Ruthsatz administered the Stanford-Binet IQ test to the prominent child prodigies who have been featured on national and international television programs, and most of whom had reached professional level performance in their domain by age ten. Interestingly the results of the testing showed that it was not necessarily an elaborate IQ value they had in common, but rather a superlative working (long-term) memory and a high attention to detail (a trait prevalent in autism). In this month’s article, published in Slate, “Do child prodigies owe their talents to autism?” Katy Waldman picks up on Ruthsatz’s premises that prodigies may have autism (or at least autism-affiliated traits) to thank for some of their remarkable feats.
It is the following aspect that seems to explain the ‘natural’ connection between fundraisers for the arts and the prodigies: “The child prodigies as a group has advanced moral development,” says Ruthsatz. Future research will investigate the underpinnings to such benevolent behavior (Studies by Ernst Fehr in Switzerland pointing to a scientific, genetic linkage to the ability of being sensitive to the needs of others).”
“While it’s a great passion, it also takes the greatest effort and we really hope that the community will give us their full support. Everyone – except the artists- works on a pro-bono basis, so far, but in order to grow, there needs to be an operating budget,” Baksht continues. Coming from a cultural environment where the arts were supported by the government, the fund raising aspect is something the thirty-something young pianist has had to adjust to. Her 8 years old son endorses her efforts:”Mama, you have courage and you never give up.”
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the hamptons