Watch piano virtuoso L
eon Fleisher’s most recent interview with PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown. Fleisher’s memoir My Nine Lives is mentioned and they discuss Fleisher’s long career from two-handed playing, to one-handed playing, to teaching and conducting. Fleisher speaks about his neurological disorder focal dystonia and how he recovered the use of his right hand through a combination of Rolfing® SI and Botox® injections. There is a small segment showing him receiving Rolfing SI from Certified Advanced Rolfer™ Tessy Brungardt.
Leon Fleisher on PBS NewsHour
Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.
Fleisher, famous for first losing then regaining the use of his right hand, is featured in Nathaniel Kahn’s 2007 Academy Award nominated documentary film Two Hands.
Nathaniel Kahn’s documentary about Leon Fleisher Two Hands
Leon Fleisher – Two Hands from Thomas Duperre on Vimeo.
Oliver Sacks, MD also writes about Fleisher in his September 2008 revised and expanded national bestseller, Musicophilia. In 1964, Leon Fleisher was forced to give up performing having been stricken by a mysterious ailment that caused the fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand to curl under when he played.
Three decades later he was finally diagnosed with a neuromuscular movement disorder known as focal dystonia. Fleisher tried Botox treatments but needed additional help for his arm and hand which he found with Rolfing structural integration. The Rolfing manipulation was able to soften up the muscles and tendons in his arm which felt like petrified wood and release Fleisher’s right hand that had become so clenched he could not open it. By 1996 Fleisher was able to give a two-hand performance for the first time in 30 years. Below is a clip of Fleisher’s 1996 Dateline NBC interview with Jane Pauley.
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