Student Cellist with Profound Autism Speaks Through Music Adam Mandela Walden, recently featured on NPR, finds understanding-and makes himself understood-within the musical community at Berklee.
By
Darry Madden
April 20, 2023
Adam Mandela Walden
Image courtesy of the artist
Having profound autism is a lot of hard work. I have to work very hard to talk to anyone about anything, Adam Mandela Walden, cellist and performance major, told listeners on a recent episode of NPR's From the Top after he performed the intermezzo from Goyescas. I have autism-related epilepsy. I have 40-plus seizures every day. The good news is that I never have a seizure when I am playing music.
The NPR show, which features young classically trained musicians every week, dedicated this episode to celebrating and amplifying the voices of young disabled musicians. Walden is the first Berklee student featured on the show, and the first student with profound autism to attend Berklee.
Walden read from a prepared statement-he is mostly unable to speak, and music has been his only fluent language since early childhood. I remember when I could not say any words, he said. But I could sing.
The research suggests that Adam learns music the way typical people learn language, said his mother, Rosanne Katon Walden, who helps Adam make his way through the world. Rosanne relocated with Adam to Boston from Los Angeles in order for him to attend Berklee.
John Escobar, associate professor of music production and engineering, also works for From the Top and helped with the audio technology for Walden's episode. He was excited to see these two worlds-the music and disability communities-connect. What was important about this particular show was not just the merging of the two worlds, said Escobar. But actually the fact that at Berklee, one of our diversity and inclusion initiatives is including people like Adam in our community.
Escobar invited students from his production classes to assist on Waldens recording session, and he said they were blown away by Walden, his talent, and his story. They said, John, I never realized that we had students like that here at Berklee,' meaning with those kinds of challenges, said Escobar.
Watch Adam Mandela Walden perform with the Berklee World Strings ensemble:
A Unifying Language Walden came to Berklee to study with cello professors Eugene Friesen and Natalie Haas. He is currently working with Friesen on a musical composition based on the 2016 book The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a 13-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida. Escobar's orchestral recording class recently recorded Friesan's World Strings Ensemble performing the piece, with Walden at the lead.
Rosanne felt the book was eye-opening for understanding how her son was experiencing the world. One thing thats kind of hard is that since Adam only knows this existence, its almost like its by accident that he finds out that other people do things in a different way, said Rosanne. She recalled once, riding an elevator in a building at Berklee with other students and faculty, the elevator made a strange metal-on-metal sound. Someone in the elevator said, What's that noise? and Walden replied, E-flat.
Changing How We Talk About Disability
Rhoda Bernard, managing director of Berklees Institute for Accessible Arts Education, makes the case for why our language surrounding disability matters.
But for all the ways that Walden sees and lives in the world differently, and all of the associated challenges, Rosanne said Berklee deserves all of the credit for everything they've done for him. She's also grateful for the work of the Berklee Institute for Accessible Arts Education, where Walden is a volunteer.
There was a teacher in the very beginning, when it was a really bumpy road and no one knew if Adam was going to last a week, who said the most profound thing. We were sitting in a meeting trying to figure out what to do, and he said, I know Adams problem. He knows all of the correct answers. He doesnt understand the question. And it was like a light bulb went off. And were like, okay, our goal is to find a way for Adam to understand the question, said Rosanne.
She said she has many faculty members and administrators to thank for their hard work and creativity in instructing Walden, and she sees their journey as bigger than them.
Everything theyve done with Adam has informed how they deal with other people on the spectrum. Because if Berklee can accommodate Adam, every person on the spectrum, all the way up to the highest-functioning person, can be accommodated, she said.
Escobar believes there is great value and humanity in Berklee stretching in this way. One of the things that Im hoping everybodys realizing with Adam is that music really is a language, he said. A unifying language.
Related Categories
News
Most Popular
Image generated with AI assistance, using the prompt: 3D rendering of jazz instruments transforming into computer circuitry.
What Does New AI Technology Mean for Artists? Songwriting faculty member Ben Camp talks ChatGPT and GPT-4, confronting the creative potential and creeping dread of artificial intelligence.
Latest
Image by Libby Danforth
Viral TikTok Song If I Were a Fish Is a Joyous Call for Acceptance Berklee alum Corrine Savage, who performs as corook, wrote the song with their partner as a way to cope with feeling unaccepted by society for being different.
Katie Rupinski (center) was presented with the first EA/Berklee Next Gen Scholarship by (left to right) Screen Scoring Chair Sean McMahon; Screen Scoring Assistant Chair Esin Aydingoz; composer Nami Melumad; Worldwide Executive and President at EA Music Steve Schnur; Berklee President Erica Muhl; composer Dara Taylor; and Dean of Professional Writing and Music T
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Student Cellist with Profound Autism Speaks Through Music Adam Mandela Walden, recently featured on NPR, finds understanding-and makes himself understood-within the musical community at Berklee.
