A lecture recital by Professor Adam Ockelford & pianist Derek Paravicini, exploring the relationship between autism, visual impairment and musical abilities.

About this event

Part of Piccadilly Piano Festival at St James’s.

Doors 6:30pm. Event 7pm-8:15pm with short interval.

This event explores how we all make sense of music, and how exceptional musical abilities can develop in the context of neurodiversity and visual impairment.

Derek Paravicini is one of the most extraordinary musical entertainers of his generation. Despite being blind, autistic and having severe learning difficulties, he is a performer with a unique musical mind, a pianist who is not afraid to take technical risks and to explore sound worlds that others may shy away from. The colours and textures that Derek is able to extract from the piano mark him out as someone with a distinctive musical voice, to which listeners can return time and again to find hidden depths and meaning. Derek has played all over the world from Las Vegas to Taiwan and had two concertos specially composed for him.

Adam Ockelford is a Professor of Music and Director of the Applied Music Research Centre at the University of Roehampton, London. He has previously worked at the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), initially as Music Education Advisor before serving as Director of Education. With his long time pupil, mentee and friend, the musical savant Derek Paravicini, he is also TED Speaker. He wrote the official biography of Derek Paravicini entitled “In the Key of Genius: The Extraordinary Life of Derek Paravicini”. Adam Ockelford is the Founder and Trustee of The Amber Trust, a UK-wide charity that supports blind and partially sighted children and young people in their pursuit of music, former Chair of Trustees of Soundabout, a UK-based charity that supports people of all ages with complex needs engage with music, and Founder and Chair of Sounds of Intent Charity.