The Cellist Playing For Pennies

有点像咪咪流浪记里面的童师傅
http://www.tudou.com/playlist/id/371802/

总是有人浪费自己的天赋，别人觉得可惜
其实呢，谁又想浪费生命呢？
 或是性格的原因，或是老天作弄人
自杀与幻灭，逃不脱的结局

If you wanted to hear the classics performed by a world class musician, you'd probably end up at Abravenel hall.

However you don't need a concert ticket to hear a musician masterfully playing a rendition of Bach's Cello Suite #1, just a train ticket to the Gateway.

The small man with the big cello is a familiar site in downtown Salt Lake City.  For a dollar or two tossed into his Tootsie Roll jar, he'll play everything from Telemann to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."  Some people stop for a moment and listen, but most have no idea they are steps away from a musical prodigy. 

"Oh, I've been a musician since I was 8 years old," said Eli Potash, street performer. 

Eli Potash grew up in Massachusetts to parents who recognized their young son's gift at an early age.

"I got to go to some great schools.  I went to the Longley School in Massachusetts," Eli said.

 

After attending the famous music school, Eli went on to train abroad at the Brussels Conservatory, where he learned from the best of the best.

 

"I was so lucky to study with him, Wieland Kuijken-- that's who I studied with," Eli said.

 

Eli became the first American to win the first-prize diploma on the Viola Da Gamba and upon graduation, moved to New York City, joined an orchestra and became a recording artist.  He's one of 5 musicians featured on the album, "Trio Sonatas on Period Instruments."

    

So how did someone so talented and with such a bright future end up playing for pennies?

    

In the early 90's, Eli moved to Utah to attend the Violin Making School of America.  He had enrolled in the program to learn how to make the instruments he so skillfully plays.

    

School founder, Peter Paul Prier, taught Eli.  "Very artistic, he was able to draw very well, his technical aspect of making instruments was very, very fine," Prier said. 

 

Peter says Eli was a perfectionist with a wonderful eye--- he was as talented at constructing as he was as playing but a few years into the program, Eli started to change.

 

"Then we noticed a sort of deterioration in him," School Director Charles Woolf said.  "He admitted that he was on drugs and we told him that he needed to be treated."

 

Eli immediately withdrew from school and it was a year later when Peter saw Eli again-- at the dumpster behind the school.

 

"There was Eli," Prier said.  "He was sleeping in one of those cello cases."

 

Peter offered Eli a place to stay-- putting him up in an apartment for nearly a year; but eventually, Eli ended up back on the street--- a dangerous lifestyle that put him in the hospital last summer after a random attack.

 

"Totally smashed his face, some guy smashed him up," Prier said.

 

He lost some teeth and walks with a limp, but his injuries haven't hurt his musical ability.

 

"He is very good with his terrible hands," said Prier.  "He's very intelligent, he's very funny.  Sheer talent, I think." 

 

Talent that could be filling packed concert halls--- but instead serenades dark city streets.

 

"I feel that he is slowly dying because he doesn't want any help-- that's one of the saddest things," Prier said.

 

His stage is the street-- his audience; passer-bys, but if you ask him, Eli would tell you whether he's playing for hundreds or just himself, he'll continue to play, because he was born to make music.

    

"It comes from my heart," Eli said.