Young American jazz sensation Matthew Whitaker will open the No Limits festival with two performances on 1st and 2nd March 2025 at Hong Kong City Hall. The artist will showcase his extraordinary musicianship and musical influences ranging from jazz to gospel, soul, Latin, rhythm and blues, and hiphop. Playing piano and organ, Whitaker will present bold original compositions and rearrangements of familiar jazz classics, demonstrating his outstanding technical and improvisation skills.
Whitaker dazed the music world with his limitless virtuosity on piano, keyboards, organ and drums, his creativity as a composer and arranger and his inspiring presence as a bandleader. Recognised as a musical prodigy as a young child, he became at the age of 15 an internationally renowned jazz pianist and the youngest Yamaha Artist in history. Now 23, he is an accomplished musician, winning audiences around the world with his powerful, distinctive style and charismatic positivity. A three-time ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award winner, he has collaborated with Jon Batiste, Christian McBride, Regina Carter, Ray Chew or Derrick Hodge, and released several albums. In 2024, he performed at the Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony in Paris.
Matthew Whitaker
We had the chance to chat with Whitaker on a video call between Hong Kong and his New York’s basement studio full of keyboards and instruments, including an acoustic piano and an organ, synthesisers, guitars, basses and drums. The artist shared his musical journey with a heartwarming smile while playing and singing songs for us.
“I think the moment that I decided I wanted to become a musician was when I won first place at a competition at the age of 9, and performed at the Apollo Theater. I realised that this was something that I could keep going with. When I was 10, I met Stevie Wonder, then at 11, I started traveling internationally, and my first trip was to Japan!” Whitaker recalls.
Stevie Wonder and Matthew Whitaker, 2011
Indeed, at only 10, the young musician was the opening performer for Stevie Wonder’s induction into the Apollo Theater’s Hall of Fame in New York in 2011. The comparison with Stevie Wonder is obvious – Wonder began his own career as an 11-year-old child prodigy. But, as Whitaker says, “there is only one Stevie Wonder”. And, as we say, there is only one Matthew Whitaker!
Whitaker’s musical journey started at 3 years old when he was offered a keyboard by his grandfather, and played “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” which he had heard only once. At 5, he started taking piano lessons, and was the youngest student at The Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School, a New York school for the blind and visually impaired.
Matthew Whitaker at the age of 3
With perfect pitch, he learned to play piano mainly by listening, although he learned to read Braille music as well. He later studied at The Harlem School of the Arts, and in addition to taking lessons in classical and jazz piano, he learned to play the organ, percussion instruments, the clarinet and bass guitar. At 9, he earned the support of the Jazz Foundation of America, and as a teenager, he attended the Manhattan School of Music’s Pre-College Jazz program.
Being blind has challenged but also empowered Whitaker in his musical practice. He learned to play the piano mainly by listening, although he also learned to read Braille music. To do so, you have to feel, read and remember dots representing the music, first for the right hand, and then for the left hand. It’s a strenuous slow process.
Matthew Whitaker
“Reading Braille music is really challenging. It’s not like you can just read it real fast and learn the song. You have to do each hand separately and then you have to memorise both hands. When I’m learning the right hand part, I put my right hand on the piano and I can read the Braille music with my left hand. And when I want to run the left hand, I do the opposite, I put my left hand on the piano and read the Braille with my right hand. And then you have to memorise,” he explains.
Whitaker doesn’t let his disability stop him from doing what he loves to do. This is his motto in life. He plays piano, organ, keys, drums, and percussion. He loves experimenting. Besides music, he loves doing other activities like skiing or rock climbing. When asked if being blind has empowered him or if it has enhanced his other senses, he says: “I feel like I’m the same as everybody else. I just can’t see. The only thing that is different for me is that I just need some accommodations for certain things”. His mother and father can undoubtedly be credited for this, they have always pushed him to be like any other kid, while also guiding him in his surroundings.
Matthew Whitaker at the Montclair Jazz Festival, 2022
A strong advocate for persons with disabilities, Whitaker considers music as essential and wishes every child could explore what they want to do. “The more interactive, the more hands-on you get with people, playing, singing, acting or dancing, just go for it. I always tell people, just be you and have fun and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something,” he says with enthusiasm. He is also collaborating with companies and developers to help making their products more accessible, like products for recording music. The young artist is also very involved with schools for people with disabilities. “I was just at a college campus a couple of months ago, showing the students how to play music in their huge piano room full of different keyboards,” he recalls. Whitaker will also participate in a sharing & jam session for the No Limits audience in February!
At the No Limits 2025, he will play with his own arrangement the song Take Five, a jazz standard composed by Paul Desmond in 1959 and part of the album Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. This will be his first time ever to play this arrangement! “I love doing original pieces and also doing different arrangements with different combinations with guitar, drums, bass,” he says. In Hong Kong, he will play piano and organ alongside quintet partners Liany Mateo on bass, Marcos Robinson on guitar, Ivan Llanes on percussion and John Steele on drums.
Matthew Whitake
For his first performance in Hong Kong, the artist can’t wait for the local audience to be themselves and just have fun! “I always loved inspiring people, getting them involved. So, you might be assuming that people will be singing out there! I always love meeting the audience after the show too,” he says with a lot of enthusiasm.
Whitaker’s father said in an interview that Matthew feels that everybody is smiling at him. You can be sure that by hearing our voice during the interview, Whitaker felt that we were smiling at him all along!
More details about the two performances and No Limits 2025 can be found here:
Jazz Excellence by Matthew Whitaker
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