Missouri Classical Music News and Notes

John William Boone wore out sixteen pianos by age fifty-one playing songs that ranged from "Dat Only Chicken Pie" to Chopin's "Military Polonaise." Billed as "the marvelous musical prodigy," Boone composed complex pieces on the spot and could play back any tune after hearing it once.

Born in 1864 and blind from infancy, Boone was an African American musician who lived during the height of Jim Crow laws and the Ku Klux Klan. He was billed a "freak of nature" early on and was barred from performing in many concert halls because of his race. Yet he refused to give up. "No matter how a person is afflicted," he wrote, "there is something that he can do worthwhile." His ambition eventually earned him a place among the top ragtime performers of his time.

Today Boone is celebrated at an annual ragtime festival in Columbia, Missouri, supported by the Missouri Humanities Council. The John William Boone Heritage Foundation and the City of Columbia are helping to restore his house and turn it into a cultural museum.