LIVING WITH ADVERSITY

Program 04-12-12-A

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To The Best of Our Knowledge
from Wisconsin Public Radio

Leon Fleisher was once one of the world's great pianists. Then a rare neurological disease left two fingers of his right hand clenched into his palm, and he could play only with one hand for 37 years. At 76, Fleisher's miraculously regained the use of his bad and hand and he's playing concerts again. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll talk with Leon Fleisher.

	Leon Fleisher

SEGMENT 1:

Classical pianist Leon Fleisher tells Jim Fleming about the neurological disorder that crippled his right hand for over thirty years and what it meant for his musicianship. Fleisher has found relief with Botox injections and is once again concertizing and recording with both hands. And we hear musical examples. Also, former TTBOOK producer and interviewer Judith Strasser returns as a guest. Her memoir "Black Eye: Escaping a Marriage, Writing a Life" has been published. Strasser talks with Jim Fleming about the details of deciding what to leave out of an intimate memoir.

SEGMENT 2:

Steve Paulson presents a profile of the late writer Noel Perrin, best known for his essays on rural life. Paulson visited Perrin and interviewed him at his Vermont farmhouse a few months before his death. And Jim Fleming reads an excerpt from an essay in Noel Perrin's book "First Person Rural."

SEGMENT 3:

Writer and teacher Parker Palmer talks with Anne Strainchamps about his experience with clinical depression and attending to people on their deathbeds. He says what people in both situations need is a supportive witness. Parker Palmer's latest book is "A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life."

Cassette copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 04-12-12-A.

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Books:

• Leon Fleisher, Two Hands (CD) (Vanguard)
  
• Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life (Jossey-Bass)
  
• Noel Perrin, First Person Rural: Essays of a Sometime Farmer (Penguin)
  
• Judith Strasser, Black Eye: Escaping a Marriage, Writing a Life (Terrace Books)

Music:

• Leon Fleisher playing:
  w/ Cleveland Orchestra: Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of
  Paganini, Opus 43"
  on Franck: Symphonic Variations
  CBS Records
• Scarlatti's "Sonata in E Major"
  on "Two Hands"
  Vanguard Classics
• Schubert's "Sonata in B Flat Major"
  on "Two Hands"
• After Strasser:
  Mavis Staples w/ "Hard Times Come Again No More"
  on "Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster"
  American Roots Publishing
• Music Option:< Red Clay Ramblers w/ "Hard Times"
  on "Hard Times"
  Flying Fish Records
• After Perrin:
  Keith Jarrett w/ "Blame It On My Youth"
  on "The Melody at Night, with You"
  ECM Records
• Music Option:
  Keith Jarrett w/ "My Wild Irish Rose"
  on "The Melody at Night, with You"
• After Palmer:
  Ben Webster w/ "Time on My Hands"
  on "Soulville"
  Verve Records
  

Distribution dates:

week of 12/12/2004 - hour 1

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Questions and comments can be addressed to: flemingj@wpr.org

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