How Martha Curtis Used Music As Her Guiding Light
I had a very strong sense that I had to stay involved in my own life to have a life that I wanted to live…Life is not linear…it’s a winding road. It’s not a straight shot…On that winding road, I got knocked down a lot of times. So I had to learn, all I had to do was redefine success every time I needed to…There’s no reason to leave the definition of success up to the rest of the world.
Martha Curtis
Imagine yourself entering upon a brightly lit stage and facing an arena filled with thousands of people there to watch you do what you love to do. You feel the adrenaline pumping through your veins as you turn towards your audience, until you close your eyes and begin to play your heart out to a beautiful melody. You lose yourself in the music, and before you know it, you open your eyes to see people standing up from their seats, their clapping accumulating to a booming round of applause.
This is the dream, the destination, the ultimate goal that many talented musicians hope to accomplish. And violinist prodigy Martha Curtis was no exception. Even from a young age, there was no doubt that she had an unrivaled passion for music. After motivation from her mother, she began playing violin at nine years old. “[My mother] entered me into a world of beauty and order, which goes a long way if your own brain is attacking you,” Curtis said at a fundraiser for 2012 The Candlelight Concert for Epilepsy Awareness.
However, the epileptic seizures that she frequently experienced was a troubling obstacle that made her dream more difficult to achieve. Curtis was diagnosed with epilepsy early on. Her grand-mal seizures began at the age of three, and she suffered from this condition for nearly thirty years, throughout both her childhood and young adulthood. Nevertheless, this talented violinist didn’t let her disorder get the better of her. From then, the young musician went on to become the salutatorian of the Interlochen Arts Academy before later graduating with honors from the Eastman School of Music. And with much determination, she learned to cope and coexist with her epilepsy, eventually becoming a successful and professional musician who performed in many orchestras. “In an orchestra, I really developed my passion and love for life, which was what it was going to take,” she explained.
Unfortunately, the regularly-occurring seizure episodes that she experienced continued to be an enormous struggle for her. Despite the years she spent taking medication, the symptoms of Curtis’s epilepsy worsened. At one point, she had four grand-mal seizures in a single month – three of which occurred onstage, amid her performances. “When I was in the middle of something beautiful, to have my own brain-kill it, was the hardest,” Curtis said in an interview on the television program, 60 Minutes.
Looking for a way to combat the detrimental effects of her condition, Curtis turned towards Hans Luder, M.D., and Youseff Comair, M.D., of the Cleveland Clinic, who discovered that the source of her seizures was the right temporal lobe of her brain. Due to the ineffectiveness of medication, the only solution was under going extremely high-risk surgeries in which removed most of that brain region.
Regardless of the risks that these operations posed to not only her musical career but her entire life, she courageously decided to have three major surgeries, resulting in the removal of nearly fifty percent of her right temporal lobe. “[People] wanted to know, ‘How did you face all those surgeries? And really, it was a pure desire to go beyond mere survival. It’s really hard to have your brain attacking you, and I wanted to thrive. I wanted to do what I wanted to do; I wanted to play. I wanted a life that I wanted to live,”Curtis said. A life without music, to her, was not a life at all.
And because of that decision, today, she is seizure-free and her ability to perform and memorize music surpasses the level at which she was before this transition. Despite the challenges she faced and the stigma she encountered from society, who doubted her talent due to her physical limitations, she persevered to become a pioneering musician, an inspiration to many. Her story alone contradicted close-minded, preconceived notions that having epilepsy rendered a person incapable of success and a normal lifestyle.
Music, Curtis reveals, served as her motivation, her drive, to keep living. This passion of hers brought beauty and light to her life; it introduced her to a world that did not revolve around her condition. “I am alive today because I had a violin,” she said.
While neurological studies do demonstrate that musical therapy is effective for certain epileptic individuals, we must also acknowledge the power of music in a more spiritual sense. Music was the guiding light of Curtis’s life. It pushed her to break boundaries, to succeed, to conquer her fears and live out her ambitions.
Music saved Curtis in a way that nothing else could. And because of that, she lives to tell an incredible story through both her words and her talent – one that inspires audiences throughout the world.
Bibliography:
- “Martha Curtis.” Martha Curtis, marthacurtis.com/bio.htm. Accessed 14 July 2020.
- “Martha Curtis.Mpg.” YouTube, uploaded by dakb63, 27 Mar. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=0orvyhG6Y8M.
- “Martha Curtis.” YouTube, uploaded by AdmireComedyLecture, 5 Apr. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KlrNf_D7v0.
- Curtis, M. (n.d.). Martha Curtis. Retrieved 2020, from http://marthacurtis.com/index.htm
This post was written in collaboration with an organization called RECURE (Research In Epilepsy Cure). Their mission is to raise awareness for epilepsy through research, fundraising, and exploration. You can visit their website at www.teamrecure.com.
Author: Kaitlyn Chan
Kaitlyn is a rising senior in New York City with a passion for psychology and neuroscience. As someone who is aware of society’s misconstrued perception of neurological disorders such as epilepsy, she is passionate about erasing the prejudicial stereotypes that epileptic individuals are associated with. In addition to raising awareness and educating others about epilepsy, Kaitlyn is also a strong advocate against climate change, racism, ableism, and sex-based discrimination, and I strive to take a stand against these issues by encouraging others to embrace diversity and individuality.