'Bionic' gloves allow piano prodigy to play again — 20 years after losing control of hand
In 1998, legendary pianist João Carlos Martins played what he assumed would be his last concert. He was 58 years old.
So, just after the 1998 concert, he underwent a surgery to cut his ulnar nerve — which control the muscles in the forearm and hand — on his right side. It was a drastic procedure that left him unable to play the piano with both hands, but Martins found happiness working as a conductor and running music programs for underprivileged teens in Brazil.Martins enjoyed a distinguished career dating back to childhood, before losing the use of his right hand in the late 1990s.
The child prodigy threw his energies into conducting, among other things — here, he leads the Orchestra Filarmonica Bachiana at Avery Fisher Hall in 2010.“I said, ‘With these gloves perhaps I can win a boxing fight — but it will not help [with the piano] at all.” While Martins said he’s only 10% the pianist he was at his height, he’s still quite impressive. During a photo shoot on Tuesday at Steinway’s Sixth Avenue showroom, the white-haired maestro eagerly threw off his coat, sat at a piano and launched into a piece written by the Italian film composer Ennio Morricone.The gloves that enabled his return to the stage as a pianist were created by an industrial and automotive designer named Ubiratan Bizarro Costa, who saw Martins on TV and wanted to help.
For his concert at Carnegie Hall Saturday, Martins will conduct the NOVUS NY orchestra in a program featuring Bach, alongside the work of Brazilian composers Heitor Villa-Lobos and André Mehmari. And he’ll play keyboard, too.
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