by Ann Hulbert
stock worth $49.1 million: Hartigan, “Young and Brilliant, Blessed and Cursed.”
“intellectual legacy”: Edwards interview.
“vision of bringing programming”: “YOW! 2015 Speakers: Jonathan Edwards,” http://brisbane.yowconference.com.au/speakers/jonathan-edwards/.
Communications Design Group: It has since become the Human Advancement Research Company.
“Our nerd culture embraces”: Jonathan Edwards, “ch-ch-changes,” Alarming Development (blog), January 31, 2016, http://alarmingdevelopment.org/?p=952.
“brilliant, compulsive achievers”: Edwards interview.
the downward creep: Bilger, “Nerd Camp.”
“moaning about transfer credit”: Belmonte, “On Leaving CTY.”
Younger alumni on the site: Matthew Belmonte’s essay, widely circulated on the Internet, prompted lots of responses, posted on “The Real CTY.” See http://web.archive.org/web/20040113223443/http://www.eviliza.org/cty/news/essays.html.
“how life works, [how] to be balanced”: Edwards interview.
“absorb as normal”: Bates interview.
“an obnoxious human being”: Isaacson, The Innovators, p. 329.
he considered many of them “dumb shits”: Isaacson, Steve Jobs, p. 43.
“the cult of the boy engineer”: Ullman, “Out of Time,” p. 140.
“the culture of programming unfairly excludes”: Jonathan Edwards, “Developer Inequality and the Technical Debt Crisis,” Alarming Development (blog), July 7, 2014, http://alarmingdevelopment.org/?p=865.
“a Mad Computer Scientist”: Jonathan Edwards, email to author, December 11, 2011.
PART IV MIRACLES AND STRIVERS
Chapter 7. The Mystery of Savant Syndrome
Where not otherwise indicated, biographical details about Jacob Barnett are drawn from Kristine Barnett, The Spark: A Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism (New York: Random House, 2014).
Reclusive William James Sidis: In Michael Fitzgerald and Ioan James, Mind of the Mathematician (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), pp. 35–39, the authors argue that it is “highly likely” that not just William James Sidis, but Norbert Wiener and their fathers as well, “suffered from Asperger syndrome.” Yeats and Wittgenstein are discussed in Michael Fitzgerald, Autism and Creativity: Is There a Link Between Autism in Men and Exceptional Ability? (New York: Routledge, 2004). See also “Famous People with Asperger Syndrome or Similar Autistic Traits,” http://www.asperger-syndrome.me.uk/people.htm, and “Famous People with Aspergers Syndrome,” https://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/article_2086.shtml.
Jonathan Edwards raised this possibility: Jonathan Edwards, interview by author, September 22, 2010.
in 2013, the Asperger’s label: As of 2013, with the publication of the DSM-V, Asperger’s was eliminated as a separate category of the spectrum disorder and is now synonymous with high-functioning autism.
“a signature disorder of the high-tech information age”: Hanna Rosin, “Letting Go of Asperger’s,” Atlantic, March 2014, p. 40.
Viennese pediatrician Hans Asperger: Hans Asperger, “Autistic Psychopathy in Childhood,” in Uta Frith, ed., Autism and Asperger Syndrome (Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 37–92.
“for success in science and art”: Hans Asperger, “Problems of Infantile Autism,” Communication: Journal of the National Autistic Society 13 (1979): 45–52.
was surprised by how often: Darold A. Treffert, interview by author, March 1, 2011.
“without lessons or training”: Darold A. Treffert, Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired, and Sudden Savant (Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley, 2010), p. 12.
disproportionately associated with autism: Darold A. Treffert, “The Savant Syndrome: An Extraordinary Condition; A Synopsis: Past, Present, Future,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364 (2009): 1351–57.
Treffert had a new prefix: Treffert, Islands of Genius, pp. 24–25.
“Mozart of jazz”: Ibid., p. xiiv. See also Daniel Tammet, Embracing the Wild Sky: A Tour Across the Horizons of the Mind (New York: Free Press, 2009), pp. 25, 254.
roughly one in ten people: Treffert, “The Savant Syndrome.”
didn’t officially belong: Treffert sounded baffled by Jay: “Then there is Jay. Jay is not a savant.” Treffert, Islands of Genius, p. 55.
whose mother had found her way: Darold A. Treffert, “The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius,” Wisconsin Medical Society blog, June 25, 2013, https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-syndrome/archive/2013-archive/.
She called Treffert: Barnett, The Spark, pp. 130–33.
dreaded that ever happening again: Ibid., p. 137.
christened a “miracle worker”: See Josh Jones, “Mark Twain & Helen Keller’s Special Friendship,” Open Culture, May 13, 2015, http://www.openculture.com/2015/05/mark-twain-helen-kellers-special-friendship.html.
Keller’s “soul-sense”: Helen Keller, The Story of My Life: The Restored Classic, ed. Roger Shattuck and Dorothy Hermann (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), pp. 92, 100. See also Shattuck’s commentary on p. 450.
“mind blindness,” the inability to extrapolate: John Donovan and Caren Zucker, In a Different Key: The Story of Autism (New York: Crown, 2016), pp. 300–304. See also Simon Baron-Cohen, Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995).
“So a problem child?”: “Prodigy, 12, Compared to Mozart,” 60 Minutes, CBS News, November 24, 2004.
“She has one advantage”: Anne Sullivan wrote in one of her reports, “I believe every child has hidden away somewhere in his being noble capacities which may be quickened and developed if we go about it in the right way; but we shall never properly develop the higher natures of our little ones while we continue to fill their minds with the so-called rudiments.” Keller, The Story of My Life, pp. 198, 212.
“This child told me, he said”: “Prodigy, 12, Compared to Mozart,” 60 Minutes.
“He’s so busy learning things”: Diane Savage, interview by author, May 24, 2014.
“Your son,” Diane was stunned to hear: Steve Silberman, “The Key to Genius,” Wired, December 2003.
Matt wasn’t following the plots: Matt Savage, interview by author, May 10, 2014.
the “full-blown autism” category: Barnett, The Spark, pp. 28, 32.
“We research the hell out of everything”: Larry Savage and Diane Savage, interview by author, April 10, 2015.
Auditory Integration Training: Rosalie Seymour, “A Brief History of Auditory Integration Training,” n.d., http://aitinstitute.org/ait_history.htm.
“ulterior motive”: L. Savage and D. Savage interview.
“My mind is made of math problems”: Silberman, “The Key to Genius.”
by now more systematized: Barry M. Prizant with Tom Fields-Meyer, Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), p. 3.
“The calendar on the kitchen wall”: Barnett, The Spark, p. 33.
pestering (her word): Ibid., p. 45.
“his focus was ferocious”: Ibid., p. 46.
“terrible, tangled mess”: Ibid., p. 47.
“night-night”: Ibid., p. 42.
“Did you get in your hours?”: Ibid., p. 51.
“I always believed”: Sanjay Gupta, “Genius: Quest for Extreme Brain Power,” CNN, October 10, 2006.
“I knew my child better”: Barnett, The Spark, p. 58.
he grasped its structure and harmonies: Samuel Zyman, interview by author, February 14, 2011.
pretty sure he had skipped around: M. Savage interview, May 10, 2014.
here was a “special situation”: D. Savage interview.
noting several tracks in the nine-minute range: M. Savage interview, May 10, 2014.
“to admit sheepishly”: L. Savage and D. Savage interview.
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��I came to see my maternal intuition”: Barnett, The Spark, p. 102.
“the over-the-top ‘muchness’ ”: Ibid., p. 75.
“port of last resort”: Ibid., p. 66.
“a highly unorthodox kindergarten”: Ibid., p. 67.
“match up with some so-called normal template”: Ibid., p. 58.
“the room went silent”: Ibid., p. 86.
“the awe and veneration”: Ibid., p. 90.
“hadn’t been missing after all”: Ibid., p. 94.
detail-oriented curiosity: See, for example, Francesca Happé and Pedro Vital, “What Aspects of Autism Predispose to Talent?,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 364, no. 1522 (2009): 1369–75.
“Rage to master”: Ellen Winner, Gifted Children: Myths and Realities (New York: Basic Books, 1996), pp. 3–4.
“Nobody was telling Jake”: Barnett, The Spark, p. 95.
“rubs me the wrong way”: Keller, The Story of My Life, p. 179.
“What would you do”: Samuel Zyman, “New Music from a Very New Composer,” Juilliard Journal 18, no. 8 (May 2003).
started cello lessons at three: “Jay Greenberg, Composer,” IMG Artists, http://imgartists.com/artist/jay_greenberg; in Jay’s own later notes on several pieces, he says he started at four.
all about theory and composition: Jay Greenberg, email to author, February 24, 2011. Greenberg said he started studying in 1998 with Antony John, whom he called a “key figure.”
“the likes of Mozart, and Mendelssohn”: “Prodigy, 12, Compared to Mozart,” 60 Minutes.
“It’s hard to convey”: Zyman compared the feat to stories of Mozart at work on the overture to The Marriage of Figaro the evening before its debut performance, writing out individual parts because there was no time to produce a full score. Zyman interview.
“It’s as if the unconscious mind”: “Prodigy, 12, Compared to Mozart,” 60 Minutes.
“I was an unwelcome arrival”: Jay Greenberg, email to author.
“being surrounded by other super musically gifted kids”: Zyman interview.
“We had real problems at the beginning”: Samuel Adler, interview by author, February 16, 2011.
a plaque noting that Mozart: Frank J. Oteri, “Samuel Adler: Knowing What You’re Doing,” a conversation at the German Consulate to the United Nations, March 12, 2015, http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/samuel-adler-knowing-what-youre-doing/.
“everything I said”: This and other quotations from Adler in this section are from Adler interview.
Not that the way ahead: Joan Acocella, “I Can’t Go On!,” New Yorker, August 3, 2015. She comments on the price of rigorous musical education in preparation for a solo career: “At least by adolescence, a person aiming at a soloist career in classical music is practicing about five hours a day. This means that he is alone for at least a third of his waking hours and therefore, unlike his peers, is not engaged in what psychologists call ‘ego development.’ He is not finding out what other people are like; he is not learning how to handle doubt, fear, envy, delay, failure—indeed, success.”
“spurt of productivity and growth”: Jay Greenberg, “Composer Note: Sonata for Cello and Piano” (2004), http://www.musicsalesclassical.com/composer/work/37027.
“Genius is an abnormality”: Andrew Solomon, “Would You Wish This on Your Child?,” New York Times Magazine, November 4, 2012.
“Matt comes with software installed”: Quoted in Beautiful Minds: A Voyage into the Brain (2006), directed by Petra Höfer and Freddie Röckenhaus.
“some…that are very far ahead”: Eyran Katsenelenbogen, interview by author, November 6, 2014.
“I used to play a lot”…“Bouncy”: M. Savage interview, May 10, 2014.
“wouldn’t make eye contact”: John Funkhouser, interview by author, October 30, 2014.
“I just understood jazz theory”: M. Savage interview, May 10, 2014.
“Everything visual comes to me”: Ibid.
“They really clicked”: Funkhouser interview.
conveying “life lessons”: M. Savage interview, May 10, 2014.
Banacos didn’t just work with Matt: See Lefteris Korids, “Top Speed and in All Keys: Charlie Banacos’s Pedagogy of Jazz Improvisation,” D.Mus.A. thesis, New England Conservatory of Music, 2012.
“We definitely did extreme things for our kids”: L. Savage and D. Savage interview.
looking back, called them “clichéd”: Matt Savage, interview by author, November 3, 2014.
“he evolved very quickly”: Funkhouser interview.
“between softly gliding passages”: Christopher Porterfield, “Debut of an Odd Couple,” Time, November 17, 2003.
“a musical term meaning”: Matt Savage Trio, Cutting Loose (2004), Savage Records, http://savagerecords.com/wordpressnew/music/cutting-loose/.
“What I love about jazz”: Chris Elliott, “Savage Genius,” Seacoast Online, September 28, 2006, http://www.seacoastonline.com/article/20060928/LIFE/309289977.
“huge strides emotionally”: Porterfield, “Debut of an Odd Couple.”
“a turbocharged working memory”: Barnett, The Spark, p. 237.
“As long as Jake could get”: Ibid., p. 137.
“If I had stopped and let myself bask”: Ibid., p. 238.
“from a private school in Manhattan”: Ibid., p. 230.
“trying to ‘fix’ ”: Ibid., p. 165.
“play and ordinary childhood experiences”: Ibid., p. 160.
their son was “profoundly gifted”: Ibid., pp. 229–30.
“creative fugue state”: Ibid., p. 204.
on the road to a Nobel Prize: Ibid., p. 210.
“several of the toughest problems”: Michelle Castillo, “12-Year-Old Genius Expands Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Thinks He Can Prove It Wrong,” Time, March 26, 2011.
often called “Mama Jane”: Barnett, The Spark, p. 215.
“The biggest change”: Ibid., p. 221.
quietly humming musical phrases: Ian VanderMeulen, “Sounds Like Teen Spirit,” Symphony, March–April 2009, p. 40.
in the hands of ICM Artists: Charles Letourneau, interview by author, February 7, 2011. Letourneau was Jay’s ICM agent.
“hazardous transition to maturity”: Alex Ross, “Jay Greenberg,” The Rest Is Noise (blog), therestisnoise.com, November 30, 2004, http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/11/jay_greenberg.html.
“the disappointing realization”: Alex Ross, “Ignore the Conductor,” New Yorker, May 17, 2004.
“a validation”: Matthew Gurewitsch, “Early Works of a New Composer (Very Early, in Fact),” New York Times, August 13, 2006.
the “divine inspiration” aura: VanderMeulen, “Sounds Like Teen Spirit,” p. 41.
“at the age of 12”: Porter Anderson, “Driven to Music: A Prodigy at Age 15,” CNN, November 14, 2007.
“I really don’t spend much time”: Ibid.
“I don’t know”: Martin Steinberg, “Premiere of Teen Composer’s Concerto,” Associated Press, October 30, 2007.
“for about 10 years”: Anderson, “Driven to Music.”
writing, tae kwan do, and photography: Gurewitsch, “Early Works of a New Composer.”
“to reach the point where”: VanderMeulen, “Sounds Like Teen Spirit,” p. 43.
“emo-listening, hip-hop-dancing”: Ross, “Ignore the Conductor.”
“Thus, no longer can I remain”: Jay Greenberg, “Salutations,” Facebook, February 27, 2010, https://www.facebook.com/notes/jay-greenberg/salutations/358020974594.
“cutting or the bleeding edge of music”: Jay Greenberg, “Pardon Me, Which Way Is the Avant-Garde?,” Facebook, March 12, 2010, https://www.facebook.com/notes/jay-greenberg/pardon-me-which-way-is-the-avant-garde/387931749594.
“So, although I’m aware very few”: Jay Greenberg, “The Value of Recordings,” Facebook, March 18, 2010, https://www.facebook.com/notes/jay-greenberg/the-val
ue-of-recordings/402869739594.
“inner scientist”: Jay Greenberg, “Why Study Music, Anyway?,” Facebook, March 5, 2010, https://www.facebook.com/notes/jay-greenberg/why-study-music-anyway/370966914594.
“conducting in my head”: Jay Greenberg, email to author.
“to go to Radcliffe”: Helen Keller to Mrs. Samuel Richard Fuller, October 20, 1899, in Keller, The Story of My Life, p. 368.
Berklee College of Music: M. Savage interview, May 10, 2014; D. Savage interview; D. Savage and L. Savage interview.
“almost a gimmick”: Joseph P. Kahn, “Playing the Changes,” Boston Globe, February 9, 2010.
“That’s a tune all about”: Matt Savage, performance at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, February 21, 2011, author’s notes.
Big Apple Suite: Ibid. See description of Big Apple Suite in Corinna Da Fonseca-Wollheim, “The Musical Maturing of Matt Savage,” Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2008.
“straight-ahead jazz”: M. Savage interview, May 10, 2014.
“It’s a journey from chaos to order”: Matt Savage, comments at master’s recital at Manhattan School of Music, April 10, 2015.
“It’s all about attention span”: M. Savage interview, November 3, 2014.
“He’s been developing”: L. Savage and D. Savage interview.
a TEDxTeen talk: Jacob Barnett, “Forget What You Know,” TEDxTeen, April 9, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq-FOOQ1TpE.
the most successful TED talk: Nathan Heller, “Listen and Learn,” New Yorker, July 9, 2012.
“the wonderland of Mind”: Keller, The Story of My Life, pp. 81–82.
“became the youngest person ever”: Barnett, The Spark, p. 252.
“It’s the outliers, the oddballs”: Paul Wells, “Jacob Barnett, Boy Genius,” Maclean’s, September 9, 2013.
“My main job with Jacob”: Ibid.
Chapter 8. Tiger Parents, Super Children
Where not otherwise indicated, biographical details about Lang Lang are drawn from Lang Lang with David Ritz, Journey of a Thousand Miles: My Story (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2008), and Lang Lang with Michael French, Lang Lang: Playing with Flying Keys (New York: Delacorte Press, 2008).