Penfield teen rises above autism as a gifted timpanist
SEAN DOBBIN • STAFF WRITER • JANUARY 24, 2011
Standing in a tuxedo in a Penfield High School hallway on Friday night, Dennis "D.J." O'Keefe sways back and forth.
His head cocks up and down between sentences, and he fiddles with his lapel as he talks. His speech — quick and clear at times, choppy at others — is often interrupted by a nervous clearing of his throat.
O'Keefe was diagnosed with autism shortly after his second birthday. The Penfield High School senior has faced his share of resulting adversity, and has plenty of challenges ahead of him as he prepares to enter college and life beyond.
But if you whistle a tune, he can name every single note.
And in the 32 years that Jim Doser has taught music in the Penfield Central School District
, O'Keefe is the most talented timpani player he's ever had.
"As a timpanist, he's the best ever," said Doser. "He has a future in music as much as anyone else does. We've all been encouraging him to go this route."
O'Keefe, 18, is no savant. He's got some innate talents, for sure — the most impressive being his ability to identify the music note of any sound that's played for him, a trait commonly called perfect pitch.
But when he's in front of his percussion instruments in the school music room, or the pillows he sets up as makeshift drums in his bedroom at home, he's just another teenager trying to hone his musical skills.
"Two hours, Monday through Friday," he said.
The combination of talent and tenacity has led to some substantial opportunities for the teenager. He's won scholarships to summer music camps and practices with some of the best percussionists in Rochester .
But Friday was a big night.
Weeks before, he'd been nominated to be the lone student soloist for the Greater Rochester Music Educators' Wind Band's annual pops concert.
The wind band's director and conductor, Al Fabrizio, went to see him play, and left convinced that this student was head-and-shoulders above the rest. So the band chose a song — Concerto for Timpani and Band — that was perfect for a timpani solo, and placed it seventh in their lineup.
When he gets behind the timpani, he's in a zone all by himself," said Fabrizio.
And that's why O'Keefe found himself, dressed in a tuxedo, pacing on Friday night.
Waiting for the first six songs to finish.
Waiting for his moment on stage.
Diagnosis
O'Keefe was 26 months old when his development slowed. He wasn't talking as much, and his mother thought that a recent ear infection might have cost him his hearing. "We started the whole diagnostic process, and he was diagnosed as autistic," said Susan O'Keefe. "It was a tough time."
But the diagnosis did indirectly lead to the discovery of his interest in music. At age 3, while enrolled in a Board of Cooperative Education Services program, O'Keefe took a shine to a small, toy xylophone.
By first grade, he was playing the real thing, and after entering a music therapy program at school, he soon graduated to the electric piano.
"He kept growing out of these different instruments," said Susan O'Keefe. "We kept having to upgrade them."
In fourth grade, he joined his school's concert band, and started playing the timpani two years later. O'Keefe said he was interested in the instrument right away, but wasn't entirely sure why.
"I think it's the contour of the drum that really intrigued me. I don't know," he said.
When he was a freshman in high school, he started working with Jim Tiller, the principal percussionist in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 10th grade, which his mother called his "blossoming year," he auditioned for the Penfield High School wind ensemble and was selected.
That summer, he received an "Outstanding Musician Award" scholarship, which helped him attend theNew York State Summer School of the Arts in Saratoga Springs. In the classroom, he's always worked with a one-on-one aide, but he attended the summer school on his own.
He has won the award again, and he's hoping to continue improving in college; the Eastman School of Music is his top choice.
His disorder, ever present, doesn't put him at a disadvantage when he plays.
"Musically speaking, I would have to say it's a benefit because he is able to focus to a degree that most people cannot focus, which would explain why his technique is so spectacular," said Doser.
Challenges
Fellow percussionists are often in awe of O'Keefe's technical precision, which he has mastered over years of practice. But his mother knows that the challenges her son continues to face daily are as much a part of his story as his musical abilities.
When Jason McElwain scored 20 points in a Greece Athena High School basketball game in February 2006 — which led to television appearances and a meeting with President George W. Bush — Susan O'Keefe was concerned that the media went too far in romanticizing the disorder.
"D.J. has come such a long way, but I don't want to sensationalize autism, because it's not a cool thing at all," she said. "J-Mac was international and that just made it sound like there are no challenges, but there are. It's important to know that."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one in 110 children in the United States has a disorder that falls on the autism spectrum, and while O'Keefe has been classified as high-functioning, he had some social issues when he was young that spilled over into group music practices.
"It's very difficult for him to accept less than perfection, not only in himself but in everyone around him," said Doser.
But over the years, he learned ways to cope with mistakes from both himself and others. He became aware that he'd always be playing with musicians of different abilities, and that his frustrations with other band members wouldn't help the ensemble improve as a whole.
"His greatest growth has been in the socialization factors, in being able to accept when everything isn't perfect," said Doser.
Without the improvement, it's unlikely that Doser could have nominated him to play Friday night with a group of 57 professional music instructors on stage in the Penfield High School auditorium.
The performance
Susan O'Keefe could tell that her son was nervous before the show, though perhaps not as nervous as she was.
When O'Keefe was introduced, he strode quickly to his seat near the front of the stage, making small adjustments to the four timpani he would be playing. His mother sat in the front row just a few yards away, as did his older sister, Kalcy, and his father, who shares his name.
Fabrizio raised his arms, and O'Keefe began a low drum roll that progressed into a 20-second solo. The band sprang to action behind him, then O'Keefe began interspersing his crashing timpani between the rest of the band's steady harmonies.
Brandishing multiple sets of mallets, his hands flashed as he moved from long, loud, striking blows, to rolls that led the band into crashing crescendos.
Then Fabrizio motioned his hands to signal the end, as a broad smile crossed O'Keefe's face.
The audience let out its loudest cheer of the night as he leapt from his seat and bowed. He held his arms out toward the band, presenting the musicians for a round of applause before walking off.
He disappeared for a few seconds, returning for a second bow, another wave to the band, and a trip to the front of the stage, where he collected flowers from his mom.
Doser would later say the performance was "exceptional." Susan O'Keefe called it "fabulous."
And the 18-year-old in the tuxedo, free of any nervous twitches by the time he took his final bow, said there's nothing he likes more than performing.
"The joy of playing music... it's an indescribable feeling," he said.
"You know what I mean?"
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