Chamber music concert raises funds for child’s tethered spinal cord surgery

From staff reports

Acclaimed violinist Gregory Maytan will join musicians from the Houston and Omaha symphonies for an evening of chamber music at Spokane’s Center for Music Therapy in a fundraising effort for a 12-year-old boy in rehabilitation from spinal neurosurgery.

Maytan has earned a Grammis award (a Swedish Grammy) and has also completed a Fulbright Specialist Grant at the Norwegian Academy of Music. But perhaps his greatest title is that of “father.”

“Nabil is the name of his son,” cellist Jeff Butler wrote in an email. Nabil was once “a normal kid going to school, playing soccer, learning violin. After he became ill, he could no longer walk, was confined to a wheelchair, lost all strength in his voice and could only whisper.”

Nabil needed 24-hour care, so his father stopped working as a violinist to care for him. Maytan was eventually led to a specialist in Rhode Island, Dr. Petra Klinge, who diagnosed Nabil with a rare disease, tethered cord syndrome and hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Butler wrote. He required spinal cord neurosurgery to release his spinal cord, which attaches to the wall of your spinal canal with tethered cord syndrome.

“I teamed up with other Houston Symphony musicians last November to perform the Mendelssohn Octet as a fundraiser toward the prohibitively expensive surgery,” Butler said.

Now, the fundraising efforts will continue through a special Spokane performance, which will feature a Piano Quartet in C Minor by Gabriel Faure.

Joining Maytan and Butler on stage will be pianist Christi Zuniga and viola player Ferenc Illenyi.

The 7 p.m. Thursday concert is free, but donations are encouraged through givesendgo.com/GAHDN. The Center for Music Therapy is located at 1315 N. Napa St. in Spokane.