Daily Archives: April 5, 2017

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When you think of someone with autism, what do you see? It might be someone with a special set of talents or unique skills such as a natural artistic ability or remarkable memory. It could be someone with enhanced abilities in engineering or mathematics, or an increased focus on detail. This is because despite the negative stories of an "epidemic of autism", most of us recognise that people with autism spectrum conditions bring a whole range of valued skills and talents both technical and social to the workplace and beyond.

Research has shown that some key autism genes are part of a shared ape heritage, which predates the split that led us along a human path. Other autism genes are more recent in evolutionary terms, although they are still more than 100,000 years old.

Research has also shown autism, for the most part, is highly hereditary. Although a third of the cases of autism can be put down to the random appearance of genetic mistakes or spontaneously occurring mutations, high rates of autism are found in certain families.

This suggests autism is with us for a reason, and as our recent book and journal paper show, ancestors with autism played an important role in their social groups through human evolution because of their unique skills and talents.

Going back thousands of years, people who displayed autistic traits would not only have been accepted by their societies, they would have been highly respected. Many people with autism have exceptional memory skills, heightened visual perception, taste and smell and in some contexts, an enhanced understanding of natural systems such as animal behaviour. The incorporation of some of these skills into a community would have played a vital role in the development of specialists and it is very likely these specialists would have become vitally important for the survival of the group.

Further evidence can be found in traits shared between some cave art and talented autistic artists such as those paintings found in the Chauvet Cave, in southern France. This contains some of the best preserved figurative cave paintings in the world.

The paintings show exceptional realism, remarkable memory skills, strong attention to detail, along with a focus on parts rather than wholes. These autistic traits can also be found in talented artists who dont have autism but they are much more common in talented autistic artists.

Unfortunately, despite the potential evidence, archaeology and narratives about human origins have been slow to catch up. What is autism spectrum disorder? WIRED explains

Diversity has never been a part of our reconstructions of human origins. It has taken researchers a long time to move beyond the image of a man evolving from an ape-like form that we so typically associate with evolution. It is only relatively recently that women have been recognised as playing a key role in our evolutionary past before this, evolution narratives tended to focus on the role of men.

It is, therefore, no wonder that including autism something which is still seen as a disorder by some is considered to be controversial and this is undoubtedly why arguments about the inclusion of autism and the way it must have influenced such art have been ridiculed.

Given what we know, it is clearly time for a reappraisal of what autism has brought to human origins. Michael Fitzgerald, the first professor of child and adolescent psychiatry in Ireland to specialise in autism spectrum disorder, boldly claimed in an interview in 2006: "All human evolution was driven by slightly autistic Aspergers and autistic people. The human race would still be sitting around in caves chattering to each other if it were not for them."

While I wouldnt go that far, I have to agree that without that dash of autism in our human communities, we probably wouldnt be where we are today.

Penny Spikins is a senior lecturer in the Archaeology of Human Origins at the University of York.

Read more about autism and evolution at The Conversation.

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Did autism help drive human evolution? - Wired.co.uk

A concert that celebrates the combination of classical music and opera with classic rock, ROCKTOPIA: A Classical (R)evolution, a touring musical that stops at the State Theatre on Thursday, April 13, features world-class vocalists and top rock musicians with the aim of celebrating the combination of classical music and opera with classic rock.

The show here will involve the locally based Contemporary Youth Orchestra.

For co-founder Randall Craig Fleischer, who attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the musical represents the culmination of a life-long pursuit.

Ive been doing rock fusion projects for pretty much my whole career, for 30 years or so, says Fleischer via phone from Alaska where he works as music director/conductor of the Anchorage Symphony. He also serves as the music director/conductor of the Youngstown Symphony and the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. I was a rock n roll fan from the beginning. I remember when Stairway to Heaven was the top song on the Top 40 for I dont know how many weeks. Im old enough to remember those things. All the music that was classic rock was huge when I was a kid. I then became interested in classical music after singing in the high school choir.

I met Rob Evan on a show we worked together called Broadway Rocks, he says. Then, I invited him to Youngstown to sing with me in a project called Rock Fusion. At the time, he was working on a show called Rock Tenor. We were doing similar things. Weve been friends this whole time. Rob came up with the name ROCKTOPIA: A Classical (R)evolution, and weve been working on it for five years.

The first performance took place in Youngstown with the Youngstown Symphony. Though the current show has changed some since that first performance, Fleischer says the present-day incarnation retains the originals approach.

Several of the same sequences that were in that show are in that show today, Fleischer says. The first show was an enormous success. Rob then brought in executive producer William Franzblau, and between the two of them they could get the interest from PBS, and we shot a special last year in Budapest and have been off and running.

In Budapest, the group performed at the Budapest Opera, which Fleischer says is an exact replica of the Paris Opera.

Its one of the most beautiful classic music venues in the world, he says. To put in a big rock 'n' roll show in a gorgeous old 19th century opera house makes sense. The visual metaphor is clear as a bell. We are building a bridge between the two worlds.

The group puts strings and horns on Queen's "We Are the Champions," Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir" and Pink Floyd's "On the Turning Away," and the show features music by classical composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, George Frideric Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and rock bands such as Foreigner, Heart, Journey, Styx, the Who and U2.

Evan sings in the group, and the cast also includes singers Ximena Borges, Chloe Lowery, Kimberly Nichole and Tony Vincent and musicians Alex Alexander, Henry Aronson, Tony Bruno, Mat Fieldes and Mairead Nesbitt. Nesbitt is a former fiddler for the group Celtic Woman, Evan and Lowery are both members of the progressive rock band Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and Nichole and Vincent both competed on the TV series The Voice.

Oh my God theyre all really stars in their own right, Fleischer says when asked about the cast. They have a whole lot going on as individual artists. They have Broadway credits and things like that. Were just really lucky that the chemistry between them, on stage and off, is so positive. Its the same with the band. [Guitarist] Tony Bruno [whos played with Enrique Iglesias, Rihanna, E Knaan, Karmin, Delta Goodrem]is a star. Music director Henry Aronson is an extremely accomplishd Broadway musical director and [drummer] Alex [Alexander] and [bassist] Mat [Fieldes] have careers as well.

Fleischer says ROCKTOPIA: A Classical (R)evolutionworks simply because the rock and classical worlds are very similar.

Who knows where well take this show in the future,"he says, adding that Rocktopia 2 is a possibility as is Rocktopia Hip-hop. "Its all about the expression.Both forms of music [classical and rock] are about passion and all the expressions of the human experience. The music is about emotion. I hope people are really moved and excited by the show.

Read more here:

Rock and Classical Worlds Collide in 'ROCKTOPIA : A Classical (R)evolution' - Cleveland Scene Weekly