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Musical vision is ultimately about what is felt, not what is seen.
Musicians Matthew Whitaker and Raul Midon, both blind since infancy, have made successful careers listening inward, letting all the colors of sound paint their musical pictures.
Being blind has some limitations, they both say, but making music isn’t one of them.
Whitaker and Midon will perform separately at a concert on Saturday at the Miller Center for the Arts in Reading as part of the Boscov’s Berks Jazz Fest.
The show starts at 6 p.m.; tickets are $59.
Whitaker, 24, is a pianist as well as a composer and producer.
His parents noticed his prodigious talent when he was a toddler, he said, able to pick out songs on a child’s keyboard at the age of 3.
“I don’t really remember,” Whitaker said of his first performance of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. “I remember always being interested in sound. I would hear something, and I would naturally go towards it. I didn’t talk until I was 3, but I always loved sound and music.”
He does remember impressing a music school.
“I had my first piano lesson when I was 5,” he said. “I am still with the same teacher.”
Technically too young to take lessons, Whitaker showed off his talent during an audition at the school and was immediately invited to join.
“I was the youngest,” he said. “I remember them saying, ‘You got it, you’re in.’”
Born at only 24 weeks gestation and weighing less than 2 pounds, Whitaker’s blindness was due to retinopathy of prematurity, a condition where the retina detaches due to the oxygen therapy used to help very premature babies breathe.
Whitaker underwent nearly a dozen surgeries as a baby to try and restore his sight, but they were unsuccessful. He said he can see light and shadows, but nothing more.
Whitaker said he never let his blindness keep him from doing anything he wanted, whether it was skiing, playing video games, winning Showtime at the Apollo’s amateur night or scoring a movie.
He has scored two films: “Starkeisha” on Hulu and the documentary “About Tomorrow.” He has appeared on the “Today” show,” “Ellen” and was featured on “60 Minutes” as an advocate for understanding disabilities, including working with scientists to see how his brain processes music.
“Apparently I use my visual cortex to process music,” he said. “It just lights up.”
He continues to advocate for programs and devices that make navigating the word easier for those with limited vision.
Whitaker said he’s excited for his debut at the Berks Jazz Fest and said it will include a wide repertoire of jazz, gospel and some Latin music. He has released four albums including 2024’s “On Their Shoulders: An Organ Tribute,” has collaborated with industry greats Jon Batiste and Christian McBride and has won three ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Awards.
“I just focus on doing the best I can,” he said of his role as band leader. “I love interacting with the audience. I love sharing my gift with others.”
Raul Midon
Raul Midon has travelled a similar path for much longer. He, too, has been blind since infancy because of ROP.
Midon’s set will likely include music from “Lost & Found,” the album he released in 2023 as well as 2005’s “State of Mind.”
“I might throw in some new stuff, too,” he said, adding that he is always creating new music.
Midon was born into a musical family in rural New Mexico and said his dad noticed his talent for music as a young child.
“I started on the drums,” he said. “It was the ’70s and we lived in the middle of nowhere. My family was very artistic (his mom was an artist and his dad a dancer), so we had instruments around.
“I remember vividly playing different drums. There was one you held in your lap, and it had a hole in the bottom. We did activities all the time. My dad really nurtured that interest in music. I would make up rhythms and they would evolve and change.”
His twin brother, Marco, played as well, and the two created their own radio programs thanks to a Mr. Microphone toy popular in the ’70s.
“We didn’t have a lot to do in New Mexico,” he said. “We didn’t even have a television set, so we had to entertain ourselves.”
It wasn’t long before Midon picked up a guitar and discovered his calling.
He said that being blind narrowed his career choices, so he was happy to have found his niche in music.
“Technology has made things better,” he said. “But when I was growing up there wasn’t much you could do if you were blind, so when I realized I had a gift for music, it was a no-brainer that I would make that my career.”
He’s worked with industry legends including Shakira, Bill Withers, Herbie Hancock, Sting, Terence Blanchard and Dianne Reeves. “State of Mind” includes a guest performance by Stevie Wonder and Jason Mraz.
Spike Lee’s movie “She Hate Me” featured Midon’s composition “Adam n’ Eve n’ Eve.”
He has been twice nominated for a Grammy for his albums “Bad Ass and Blind” and “If You Really Want.” In 2021, he was awarded the Disability Rights Ambassador of the Year Award, presented to him in a virtual ceremony by his friend and collaborator Mraz.
He has a studio in his home that allows him to make music whenever the muse strikes him, which he says is often.
Growing up he was introduced to jazz by his dad’s record collection when he and Marco got bored with creating radio shows for their neighbors with only two albums.
“We thought we would be in trouble, but we only had two records — ‘Thin Lizzy’ and ‘Hotel California’ — and would play them over and over again,” Midon said. “We got sick of them, so we went in and searched about in his collection. Charlie Parker blew my mind.”
His father didn’t get angry and used the opportunity to introduce his sons to jazz artists from Dave Brubeck to Ornette Coleman to Miles Davis.
Never one to shy away from a challenge, he used the slower time during the pandemic to produce an instrumental album of guitar duets at his home studio as well as contribute to NPRs Tiny Desk Home Edition.
And while music still excites him, he’s expanding into fiction with a novel “Tembererana,” based on a recurring dream he had as a child.
“It’s challenging,” he said of the work in progress. “Can I write something that makes sense to people who can see? It works in music, he said, but that’s a different muse.”
