{"id":2074,"date":"2014-02-23T20:30:18","date_gmt":"2014-02-23T15:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shekharkapur.com\/blog\/?p=2074"},"modified":"2014-03-26T16:12:54","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T10:42:54","slug":"a-inspirational-life-joao-carlos-martins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shekharkapur.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/a-inspirational-life-joao-carlos-martins\/","title":{"rendered":"A Inspirational Life : Joao Carlos Martins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>Jo\u00e3o Carlos Martins was enjoying a brilliant career as a concert pianist, with performances at\u00a0<\/span>prestigious venues such as New York\u2019s 2,800-seater Carnegie Hall, when disaster struck. Asports injury damaged a nerve in his right hand and, at the age of 28, he had to accept that he\u00a0had lost the ability to play perfectly \u2013 even though at an emotional level he still longed to play.\u00a0He sold all his pianos and reinvented himself, somewhat bizarrely, as a boxing entrepreneur.<\/p>\n<p>While watching the boxers, he was inspired by how they kept fighting despite adversity and hard\u00a0knocks. He told himself: \u2018I am a coward; I gave up too easily and now I\u2019m no longer giving the\u00a0best of myself\u2019.\u00a0So he quietly bought back his pianos and began practising again. He found that, by adapting hisstyle of play, he could still produce mesmerising music. After five years, he called his former\u00a0agent and suggested a comeback. With a feeling of fear and hope, Carnegie Hall was again\u00a0booked.\u00a0On the day of the comeback performance, he took a taxi to Carnegie Hall.<\/p>\n<p>The traffic was much\u00a0worse than usual and the taxi driver said: \u2018I have no idea who is playing tonight but he\u2019s surepacking out the whole place!\u2019. That night was the greatest of Martins\u2019 life, as the New York\u00a0audiences welcomed him back with ovation after ovation.\u00a0Martins received a recording contract to play all the works of J. S. Bach. But while working on\u00a0this, disaster struck again. Street thieves mugged him for the sake of his wallet; they hit him\u00a0over the head with an iron bar. The brain damage affected his playing and forced him to quit.<\/p>\n<p>During a dream he felt that he was told to become a conductor. So, at the age of 64, he took his\u00a0first lesson in how to conduct an orchestra. His musical talent allowed him to make rapid\u00a0progress \u2013 and he forged yet another career out of adversity.\u00a0Today, as well as conducting top orchestras, he reaches out to others who are struggling\u00a0against adversity \u2013 to the poor of Brazil who live in slums. Through a Foundation, Martins is\u00a0aiming to create 1,000 string orchestras throughout the favelas.\u00a0Martins told at a gathering recently: \u201cBefore everything, I love life!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He then showed his love of life and\u00a0music by playing a wonderfully emotionally piece of music, with the few fingers that still obey the\u00a0commands of his brain. And as so often before, he received a standing ovation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jo\u00e3o Carlos Martins was enjoying a brilliant career as a concert pianist, with performances at\u00a0prestigious venues such as New York\u2019s 2,800-seater Carnegie Hall, when disaster struck. Asports injury damaged a nerve in his right hand and, at the age of 28, he had to accept that he\u00a0had lost the ability to play perfectly \u2013 even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Inspirational Life : Joao Carlos Martins - Shekhar Kapur<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/shekharkapur.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/a-inspirational-life-joao-carlos-martins\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Inspirational Life : Joao Carlos Martins - Shekhar Kapur\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jo\u00e3o Carlos Martins was enjoying a brilliant career as a concert pianist, with performances at\u00a0prestigious venues such as New York\u2019s 2,800-seater Carnegie Hall, when disaster struck. 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