Patient Expresses His Thanks with a Classic Piano Performance
Episode # 39
Uploaded: June 8, 2010
Running Time: 6:58
SCHMALFELDT: From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.
(As theme fades, it is replaced by a brief snippet from Smith's performance, which establishes and fades under the voiceover.)
Music once again filled the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Center Atrium at the National Institutes of Health as NCI patient and renowned concert pianist and composer Clifford Smith performed for staff and patients on the Clinical Center's beautiful Steinway concert grand piano. Suspected of having prostate cancer, Smith entered a National Cancer Institute protocol in June 2005 for diagnosis and treatment. He credits the advanced imaging equipment at the CC for finding his cancer and has been on hormonal therapy since the condition was confirmed. His prostate-specific antigen (a biological marker for cancer) has been nearly undetectable for years, and he shows no signs of metastasis. He felt a musical performance of his original compositions would be a way of showing his appreciation for the care given by the researchers and staff of the NIH Clinical Center.
SMITH: I came here to perform in reciprocation to the great and wonderful things that NIH did for me. I wanted to thank NIH, so I came here to play for the clinic patients and staff, and to thank them. And to thank the institution which is to me the greatest research facility for medicine in the world, it is vast, and our American tax dollars couldn't be put toward a better investiture than to put into human health, so I am eternally grateful for the institution, it is a great and magnificent place, and its awesome here to think of all the things, they touch on every aspect of human health here. Not just cancer, and my hats off to them. Any time I see politicians in my work and travels I always tell them to steer some money to NIH and to keep the money coming, if anything to increase it it's a vital investment that we need.
SCHMALFELDT: Smith's life centers around his musical talent which began to develop at age 12 when he began working seriously at the piano. He began composing his own works the following year and made his professional debut that year in Chicago. He went on to attend the Interlochen Arts Academy for gifted youth and the University of Michigan, majoring in piano and composition. For the Clinical Center crowd, The Maestro performed a number of his compositions, including "A Star Spangled Visage".
(Piano Music)
SCHMALFELDT: He also performed Mystery-Élan Phantasmata, Book CVI.
(Piano Music)
SCHMALFELDT: Smith also thrilled the assembled crowd with a selection called "Fantasia di 'Perpetuum Mobile' No. 4."
(Piano Music)
SCHMALFELDT: Smith commented on the healing power of music.
SMITH: Music has a healing power it also has a power of coming in on the inside of people and charging them and changing them and it forever increases the human essence of people in their spirit, their mind, their soul.
SCHMALFELDT: As an NCI protocol patient himself, Smith felt the hospital location was more than appropriate for a performance.
SMITH: I recommend music to people who are healing, whatever the reason it could be a physical illness it could be sadness. It could be something profoundly upsetting in their life, music has a way of directing them to better health and I really believe that it is one of the best medicines that we have. It's a vast medicine, its one that's not so scrutable. You can't put your finger on every little detail, its an inscrutable art, and it's a very vast and complicated art. That's where I really draw my musical theory from for composition...
SCHMALFELDT: The Steinway Concert grand piano in the Clinical Center atrium is the result of a generous gift from Michael and Pattie Batza, and Earl and Darielle Linehan – they're the brother and sister-in-law of Dr. W. Marston Linehan, chief of the Urologic Oncology Branch at the National Cancer Institute. Since the piano was dedicated in April 2009, it has been the source of much musical joy for staff and patients at the Clinical Center. If you would like more information about this performance or more information about the NIH Clinical Center, including news about the medical research going on here every day, log on to http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov. From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO. In Bethesda, Maryland, I'm Bill Schmalfeldt at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
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