Rex Lewis-Clack

Rex Lewis-Clack
Rex taking a break from practicing Franz Liszt's Dante Sonata
Born	(1995-06-24) June 24, 1995 (age 22)
Nationality	American
Known for	Music ability

Rex Lewis-Clack (born June 24, 1995) is an American pianist, considered a prodigious musical savant.

Rex Lewis-Clack was born in Southern California, the son of Cathleen Lewis and Wasaga Clack. He was born with a cerebral Arachnoid cyst and with a form of blindness called Septo-optic dysplasia. Lewis-Clack began his life education at 6 months of age at The Blind Children's Center in Los Angeles.

Given a piano keyboard at the age of two, Lewis-Clack became fascinated, and as he developed musical skills, he also learned to talk and walk. He was completely self-taught at the piano until the age of 5, when he began taking lessons. During one of his first lessons, one of two piano teachers showed him one scale, one time, and he played the other 11 scales back that same day. By the age of 7, Lewis-Clack’s piano abilities coupled with both blindness and manifestation of autistic symptoms led to the label “prodigious musical savant.” “Savant Syndrome is a rare but remarkable condition in which persons with developmental disabilities,have some spectacular 'islands of genius' that stand in marked, jarring contrast to overall limitations.”. A prodigious savant has skills that are so remarkable that they would be termed at a ‘prodigy’ or ‘genius’ level if present in a non-disabled person). The prodigious savant represents a very high threshold group and there are probably fewer than 100 such known persons living worldwide at the present time. Lewis-Clack has been educated in the public school system, since age 5.

Lewis-Clack came to the attention of CBS’s 60 Minutes when he was 7-years old, and filmed for his first profile, called “Musically Speaking,” with correspondent Lesley Stahl and Producer Shari Finkelstein, which aired September 28, 2003, when he was 8-years old. 60 Minutes has subsequently aired two other profiles, both named “Rex,” the first of which aired in 2005 (“Meet Rex”) and the second which aired in 2008 (Rex—A Musical Savant’s Remarkable Strides). The 2008 profile “Rex,” was the winner of the 2009 Edward R. Murrow award for excellence in news coverage in the category “Best Feature in a Newsmagazine.”