REX LEWIS-CLACK
I was born blind, and I have Autism.
Rex Lewis-Clack
That's how Rex describes himself in his own professional bio, no softening, no long explanation. Just the plain facts, stated first.
Doctors had already found a large arachnoid cyst in his brain before he was born, and he had surgery soon after.
For years, ordinary life was almost unbearable for him. Sound could hurt. On his third Christmas, the family opened presents in another room because Rex couldn't stand the sound of wrapping paper tearing. Even other people's laughter could overwhelm him. Touch was just as hard: he kept his hands in fists, and adults had to gently open his fingers one by one. Speech came late and slow. His mother, Cathleen, often says he could play a Beethoven piece before he could say "Mama": he started playing around age three, and didn't call her by name until he was almost four.
Doctors had already found a large arachnoid cyst in his brain before he was born, and he had surgery soon after.
For years, ordinary life was almost unbearable for him. Sound could hurt. On his third Christmas, the family opened presents in another room because Rex couldn't stand the sound of wrapping paper tearing. Even other people's laughter could overwhelm him. Touch was just as hard: he kept his hands in fists, and adults had to gently open his fingers one by one. Speech came late and slow. His mother, Cathleen, often says he could play a Beethoven piece before he could say "Mama": he started playing around age three, and didn't call her by name until he was almost four.
On his second birthday, his father gave him a small electronic keyboard and it changed everything. Rex had spent his short life avoiding touch, yet he picked up the keyboard and held onto it almost right away. Music had a structure that random household noise never had. In one documentary, he explained the effect simply: "It all went away." He meant the pain and the tension of overwhelming sound.
His mother Cathleen Lewis was the person who turned that first spark into a life. She'd studied at Stanford and worked in finance before Rex was born; afterward, she trained herself in visual-impairment education and spent years finding the right people for her son: piano teachers, vocal coaches, Braille specialists, acting teachers. The marriage didn't survive the strain of those early years, and she raised Rex largely on her own. She still traveled with him to performances abroad, still helped audiences understand what they were watching.
By age five, Rex’s teachers had recognized his perfect pitch and ability to transpose and improvise. They also helped him develop his technique, voice, and confidence, teaching him to treat mistakes as “no big deal.”
His mother Cathleen Lewis was the person who turned that first spark into a life. She'd studied at Stanford and worked in finance before Rex was born; afterward, she trained herself in visual-impairment education and spent years finding the right people for her son: piano teachers, vocal coaches, Braille specialists, acting teachers. The marriage didn't survive the strain of those early years, and she raised Rex largely on her own. She still traveled with him to performances abroad, still helped audiences understand what they were watching.
By age five, Rex’s teachers had recognized his perfect pitch and ability to transpose and improvise. They also helped him develop his technique, voice, and confidence, teaching him to treat mistakes as “no big deal.”
School gave him a personal aide and special education classes, but he also sang in the school choir and played in the ensemble, support and inclusion side by side.
One prediction turned out to be wrong. For years, teachers assumed Rex would never read Braille: his hands were too sensitive to tolerate the raised dots. Then, around age twelve or thirteen, something shifted, and the dots became letters he could read.
Cathleen sums up what that taught her: you can't say for certain that someone will never do something. Sometimes the brain just needs more time.
CBS first told Rex's story on 60 Minutes in 2003, when he was about eight and kept coming back, in 2005, in 2008, following him as he grew, learned to sing, and began reading Braille, instead of leaving him as a one-time curiosity.
In 2008, Thomas Nelson published Cathleen's own account of those years, Rex: A Mother, Her Autistic Child, and the Music That Transformed Their Lives. It goes into his early development in real detail, and how much music had to do with it. The book was later translated into several other languages, which is largely how Rex's story reached readers far outside the US.
One prediction turned out to be wrong. For years, teachers assumed Rex would never read Braille: his hands were too sensitive to tolerate the raised dots. Then, around age twelve or thirteen, something shifted, and the dots became letters he could read.
Cathleen sums up what that taught her: you can't say for certain that someone will never do something. Sometimes the brain just needs more time.
CBS first told Rex's story on 60 Minutes in 2003, when he was about eight and kept coming back, in 2005, in 2008, following him as he grew, learned to sing, and began reading Braille, instead of leaving him as a one-time curiosity.
In 2008, Thomas Nelson published Cathleen's own account of those years, Rex: A Mother, Her Autistic Child, and the Music That Transformed Their Lives. It goes into his early development in real detail, and how much music had to do with it. The book was later translated into several other languages, which is largely how Rex's story reached readers far outside the US.
At fifteen, Rex performed for Vice President Joe Biden and his family during a reception honoring the legacy of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
In 2022, he became the lead musician in the theatrical production The Braille Legacy, playing keyboard and singing, a fitting role given his own late and unlikely path to reading Braille himself.
Rex also had a hand in starting Rex & Friends, a nonprofit built around training, studio work, and public performances for other autistic and blind musicians. It later became part of ArtsUP! LA, and it's still creating those same kinds of opportunities for musicians across Southern California.
By 2024, in Broadway Bound, he was singing and acting as well as playing piano. Cathleen once put the whole story into a single line: "Rex uses his strength with music to open up his world." Audiences who watch him on stage stop seeing a cane or a diagnosis after a few minutes. What they see instead is someone who has spent decades turning a private refuge into a public gift.
Rex also had a hand in starting Rex & Friends, a nonprofit built around training, studio work, and public performances for other autistic and blind musicians. It later became part of ArtsUP! LA, and it's still creating those same kinds of opportunities for musicians across Southern California.
By 2024, in Broadway Bound, he was singing and acting as well as playing piano. Cathleen once put the whole story into a single line: "Rex uses his strength with music to open up his world." Audiences who watch him on stage stop seeing a cane or a diagnosis after a few minutes. What they see instead is someone who has spent decades turning a private refuge into a public gift.
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