Love for Leslie

The power of love — Leslie and his caregiver Mary (2011)

About Leslie

• Leslie Lemke is a blind savant and musician.
• He was born prematurely on 31 January 1952 (he’s now 71) with severe physical and mental handicaps.
• Due to retinal problems and then glaucoma, his eyes were surgically removed in the first months of his life. Leslie also had brain damage that caused cerebral palsy and severe intellectual disability.
• His birth mother gave him up for adoption and at six months of age he was taken into the care of Joe and May Lemke.
• Social services warned May Lemke that Leslie was likely to die but she was determined to help him survive and develop. With her persistence, Leslie eventually learned to chew food, years later he learned to repeat some phrases, he learned to stand at age 12 and to walk at age 15.
• Joe and May Lemke obtained a piano for Leslie when he was 7. He learned to play simple tunes on the piano and also other instruments such as drums, accordion, and chord organ. By age 12 Leslie played the piano and sang songs he had heard for hours on end.
• Due to severe spasticity, Leslie could not hold eating utensils. However this handicap vanished when he played the piano.
• At about age 14, in the middle of the night, Joe and May were astonished to hear Leslie flawlessly playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1 after he heard it on television earlier that night. Leslie can remember and play a musical piece of any length flawlessly after hearing it once.
• By 1980, Leslie was regularly giving concerts and he has toured in Norway, Japan and throughout the United States. He has also appeared in many television shows.
• Leslie’s massive musical memory is all the more remarkable considering that he is blind, cannot read music and has never had a music lesson in his life.
• Leslie can play and sing any song that an audience member might provide as a challenge. However hard people try, it is almost impossible to “stump Leslie.”
• Leslie remains alive and well, playing as vigorously and marvelously as ever, more verbal than before, more accomplished musically, and more creative and witty.
• He lives a very modest lifestyle with his caregiver Mary, who took over the carer role from her mother.
• Leslie could have been a millionaire, but May and Mary felt that Leslie’s gift of music is a miracle that should be shared unselfishly with others.
• In 1983, ABC broadcast The Woman Who Willed a Miracle, a drama about Leslie and his adoptive mother.

About the Miracle

Dr. Darold Treffert is an expert on savants who has followed Leslie for many years. Quotes from his article [link below] that help to explain Leslie’s extraordinary recovery and achievements:

• I have had the privilege of seeing, and hearing, Leslie for over 30 years now. And that has been an extraordinary journey for me, a demonstration of the power of music, of the strength of love, faith, optimism and belief from family, friends and caregivers, and of the depth of human potential, sometimes hidden.
• And family encouragement, unconditional love, patience and belief are vital ingredients to growth and progress in these extraordinary people.
• “Nurture” then contributes mightily to the advancement of those skills and abilities.

References

Dr. Darold Treffert (2014). Whatever Happened to Leslie Lemke?

Wikipedia: Leslie Lemke

Leslie with his adoptive parents Joe and May Lemke (1981):

Leslie in concert (2003):

Leslie in concert (2007):

Leslie in concert (2011):

More videos about Leslie Lemke

The power of love — for nature, people, life

Music of love

Louis Armstrong — What A Wonderful World
Written by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele, released on 18 October 1967 (during the jew-contrived “Vietnam War”).

Chopin — Piano Concerto No 2 Op 21 in Fm
Apparently this work of indescribable beauty was inspired by Chopin’s distant idolization of Konstancja Gładkowska or of Tytus Woyciechowski.

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir — You Raise Me Up
This music was composed by Rolf Løvland and performed for the very first time at the funeral of his mother. As someone wrote in the comments below the video, this song “touches the very depth of my soul.”

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