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Feb 1, 2008

"The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, 'Is there a meaning to music?' My answer would be, 'Yes.' And 'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?' My answer to that would be, 'No.'" --Aaron Copeland

He's Got a Song -- and a Mission.

During the sound check before a Martin Luther King Day rally in Atlanta, the stage manager asked 8-year-old David Militello: "Just a few lines for us, okay?" David refused to say a word. He was scheduled to sing the national anthem, but wasn't in a very star-spangled mood -- which begs the question: How'd he even get this gig? "Oh, he can sing!" said Joyce Ketchie-Cann, the director of Harmony, one of the most prestigious children's choirs in Atlanta. She's seen David withdrawn. But she has also seen what he's capable of -- when he puts his autism aside. "He closes in, and then he comes back out, and what he comes out with is like a butterfly out of a cocoon," she said. This moving story and short video share more of David's extraordinary story.