Rising Stars Series | Matthew Whitaker Quartet

Matthew Whitaker, piano and organ Marcos Robinson, guitar Isaiah Johnson, drums Karim Hutton, electric bass Matthew Whitaker is a 21-year-old keyboardist from Hackensack, New Jersey who has defied the odds from the outset. He was born in 2001 premature by three months and blind, fighting his way to health through his earliest years. By age three, he exhibited an unusual musical acuity—picking out nursery rhymes on a toy piano—and by five, blessed with perfect pitch, he began piano lessons at The Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School in New York City where he learned to play and read Braille music as well.