by Erin Concors - Tribune

When Scott MacIntyre’s great-grandmother died, she left his family an upright piano. A curious toddler, 1-year-old MacIntyre began plunking the heavy ivory keys.
   But it wasn’t until the seeing-impaired child was 3 that his parents were alerted to his musical gift of playing by ear.
   “My parents would put me to bed with cassette tapes of music,” says MacIntyre, now 19. “Instead of falling asleep, I would go to the upright piano. I could barely reach the keys.”
   While Scott’s parents watched television, they heard simple melodies coming from another room.
   “We would put him to bed, and the next thing we knew, we were hearing the piano,” says Carole MacIntyre. “He was trying to figure out what he’d heard on the tapes. And it wasn’t just one finger; he’d be playing a three-finger chord with the left hand, and one finger on the right.”
   Now the Scottsdale man is poised to graduate from Arizona State University next month with a bachelor’s degree in piano performance. He will give his final student performance, Accompanying the ASU Chamber Orchestra, Tuesday at Gammage Auditorium.
   MacIntyre will travel to England this fall to study at Cambridge on a Marshall Scholarship sponsored by Britain.
   After he earns a one-year master’s degree in musicology, he plans to attend the Royal College of Music in London to work on a second degree in piano performance.
   MacIntyre is almost completely blind and walks with the assistance of a cane. He has a 2 degree field of vision.
   It’s kind of like looking through a straw at the world,” he says. “When I read sheet music I can only see one note at a time.
   “Because I’ve not had my vision my entire life, I’ve been forced, in a sense, to develop my hearing to a much deeper degree than most people would consciously think about doing.”

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

MacIntyre’s parents arranged for 3-year old Scott to have lessons with a neighborhood piano teacher near their Redondo Beach, Calif., home, his mother says. At age 6, he began lessons with a classical piano teacher.
   “We saw that early interest in it, so as parents we tried to do a really good job of steering a big ship that was trying to get somewhere,” says his mother.
   When he was 10, his father, Douglas, received a job offer in Toronto. The MacIntyres lived there for four years, and Scott studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music. In August 1999, his father accepted another job offer - this time to the Valley.
   “We were looking around for a neighborhood teacher or someone who could pick up where (the conservatory) left off,” says MacIntyre.
   The family found Walter Cosand, a professor of music at ASU, who at first recommended Scott take part in ASU’s fine arts program for children (now called Herberger College for Kids).
   “The woman who was running it at the time said, ‘This guy is really amazing and you should be the one to teach him, and he should be in the university instead,’” says Cosand.
   “We have other talented students, but I haven’t had any other students that young in the bachelor’s degree (program).
   “He’s not just getting all this attention because he’s visually impaired; he’s really one of the best students that we have. He’s an outstanding musician.”

MATURING PROCESS

MacIntyre began at ASU as a nondegree-seeking student.
   “Since I was 14, I’ve always been in classes with people who are four to six years older than me, on average,” he says. “It’s been a quicker maturing process for me in some regards, because I think like those people.”
   In 2002, he competed in the Butterfield Young Artist Competition at ASU.
   “I was 16 at the time and competing against bachelor’s-level, master’s-level and doctoral students from the Western states. I ended up winning,” he says.
   MacIntyre received a $2,000 scholarship and performed with the Symphony of the West Valley.
   MacIntyre has also traveled extensively, studying and performing at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, in 2002. In 2003, he gave solo concerts in California, Hawaii and Canada. He says his impairment was often a draw for people to see him perform, but has opened doors for public speaking and community service.
   “People look at my life and my music and they see what I’m doing with my abilities, in spite of my disability, and think, ’If he can accomplish this with his blindness and at 19 years old, what can I do with my life?’” says MacIntyre.

INFLUENCES AND GOALS

MacIntyre has recorded five CD’s. His first three were classical; the fourth, “My Guarantee,” was a Christian Contemporary album in a pop-rock genre with songs he wrote.
   His latest CD is a joint project created with his family. It includes his brother, Todd, 17, who alternates singing tenor and bass; sister Katelyn, 13, a soprano; and Carole, who sings alto. The disc contains Broadway tunes, sacred music, jazz and a’cappella arrangements.
   MacIntyre’s favorite musician is Billy Joel - “Not only is he a master at song writing, but also he’s one of the few who consciously tries to show that there’s a bridge between pop and classical music.” classical favorites are Beethoven, Chopin and Prokofiev.
   MacIntyre says he hopes his studies at Cambridge will give him a window into what composers were thinking while they wrote their greatest works.
   “I would love to teach down the road, but I don’t see myself doing that right away, because I thrive on performance,” he says. Not only do I love entertaining in all genres… but beyond that, it’s really meaningful when people come up to me after a concert and tell me how they’ve been inspired or touched by the music, or blessed in a certain way.”

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Scott MacIntyre
And the ASU
Chamber Orchestra
When: 7:30p.m. Tuesday
Where: Gammage Auditorium, Mill Avenue and Apache Boulevard, Tempe
Cost: Free
Information: (480) 965-8863, (480) 965-3434 or
"http://www.scottmacintyre.com/"
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Contact Writer: (480) 898-5634 or econcors@aztrib.com