this young gentleman has been followed by the post crescent for the past couple of years....he is one extremely talented guy!!!
Now in high school, Tad Lietz sets out to conquer new musical challenges
By Heather LaRoi
Post-Crescent staff writer
It’s almost inevitable. When Tad Lietz performs on the cello, people often tend to see him play before they hear him.
Granted, he presents an unusual sight. The bow, the one that charms such wonderful sounds from the strings, is held not in Tad’s left hand, as one might expect, but is grasped by the toes of his left foot.
Why? Because the 15-year-old Appleton boy was born without a left arm.
Why? Because Tad has a passion for music that nothing — nothing — can stop and if this is how he must play music, this is how he will play music.
And make no mistake, the young man can play.
“I do not consider myself handicapped because once you consider yourself handicapped … then your mind’s going to keep saying over and over that you can’t do something,” Tad said. “If you say that you can do it, then you’re giving your mind something to work towards instead of working against.”
People will come to hear the music, as the students at Appleton’s Johnston Elementary School did when Tad’s Quinteto Perfect Fifth group recently performed there, but if they also see him play, that’s good too, he said.
“Their first impression is usually visual,” said Tad, a sophomore at Appleton East High School. “The attention doesn’t bother me because it’s a great thing that people see what I do and they’re inspired by me and stuff. But I really don’t pay attention to what they think of me.
“After a while, they get used to it and they hear the music instead of watching me play and that’s the most important thing about being a performer.”
Tad was introduced to Post-Crescent readers about four years ago, when the plucky and talented then 11-year-old was selected as the patient representative for the Wisconsin Shrine Bowl in Madison, a major fund-raiser for Shriners hospitals.
Since then, he was named 2002’s “Patient Success Story” in the orthopedic category for all 22 Shriners hospitals in the country and had his own mini-tour last year as part of their benefits. He gave a solo cello performance of “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song from “Titanic,” before an audience of 4,000 people in Boston. He also performed in Virginia Beach, Virg., and Tampa Bay.
He’s also performed on national television as part of a CBS profile and on “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” program.
“I don’t get nervous performance-wise,” Tad said. “At a test, yeah, but music-wise, no.”
To this day, his mother, Mary Lietz, can hardly believe this is the same child she and husband Jeff first met more than a decade ago.
Tad lived his first few years in a crowded orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where he was just another malnourished child in a metal crib. At the time he was adopted by the Lietz family, he was 3 years old and weighed just 16 pounds.
To put it simply, he had a lot of things to deal with. With a ruptured eardrum and suffering from parasites, he couldn’t sit up, crawl or walk. Tad also was born with his left arm missing from the shoulder and suffered from other birth defects. His hearing is impaired and his eyes required surgery.
Neither Mary nor Jeff ever played an instrument seriously. But it was clear very early that for Tad, even with his impaired hearing, music would be important. Indeed, Mary says Tad’s very first word in English was “music.”
“It was so funny because you know that one Tina Turner song, ‘Baby, You’re the Best,’ somehow he knew when that was on and he’d scoot himself over to the speaker and he would sit there (bobbing his head) and he’d just smile. He loved that song,” Mary said.
His taste in music may have changed over time but his connection with music has only grown.
“He’ll tell you music’s his life. It’s what he loves,” Mary said. “There’s been other things he’s been passionate about. He loves to play soccer and he’s been passionate about that. He coaches his brother’s team and everything. But music is the one thing that just has centered his life. I don’t know how else to explain it. There’s music and then there’s everything else.”
Olive Bopp was Tad’s first music teacher when he was a fourth-grader at Johnston. She is now retired from the school system but continues to teach Tad music theory. She still remembers the almost startling passion that Tad brought to his music even very early on.
“His enthusiasm was wonderful and I was so afraid of letting him down,” she said.
In trying to figure out how Tad could wield the bow to play the cello, Tad’s father, Jeff Lietz, mentioned that Tad was very proficient at playing video games with his foot.
“And I thought, well, maybe. So we tried it,” Bopp said. “I took off my shoe and tried to play, too. After about a week, week and a half, he was ahead of me. Nothing, nothing has ever been a stopping point for Tad. Every time he reaches a point where I say, well, this is something maybe he can’t do, he always finds a way.”
The only problem that Tad sometimes encounters is if he’s playing for long periods of time, with his leg up in the air, his foot will fall asleep.
In middle school, Tad also took up the tuba.
“If I really had to play one instrument it would be cello but I like them both and I practice equally on both,” Tad said. These days, that’s probably a couple of hours daily.
His commitment to music is enough that he recently even gave up, albeit reluctantly, his beloved soccer when his schoolwork was beginning to suffer.
These days he performs with the Fox Valley Youth Symphony, the Appleton East band and the group Quinteto Perfect Fifth that was formed with four other Valley youth musicians.
“I’m still an intermediate player and have a long way to go,” Tad said. “I have not developed some skills which I need to become more advanced. That’s one thing I’m working on.”
Confidence is something that Tad has never had a problem with – and he admits it sometimes gets him into trouble. But as far as getting him where he wants to go, Tad credits something else.
“Stubbornness,” he said, with a grin. “I’m very good at it. I do have problems with that, too, but stubbornness has helped me a long ways.
“Why feel sorry for yourself? Sorry will only bring unhappiness to your life and it won’t make your life useful. One of my teachers, my health/phy ed teacher, Mr. (Steve) Walker, says something like you can either be a lump in the sand or leave footsteps in the sand. You only have one life so make it useful.”
Appleton East band director Dan Spina says that among his fellow students and musicians, “Tad’s just one of the gang.”
“He carries his tuba just like everybody else,” Spina said. “We put a strap on it so it doesn’t fall off his shoulder but he’s ready to try any and everything. Other than a little help every now and then … for the most part, he’s very self-sufficient.”
At the same time, Tad also stands out — and not because of his unconventional playing methods.
“He’s an exceptionally motivated young individual, self-motivated,” Spina said. “His attitude is very positive and very seldom do you ever see Tad down about anything. He does not see anything as a limitation; he only sees it as a chance to prove himself and to accomplish things.
“He’s not quite as good as he thinks he is sometimes,” Spina added, with a laugh, “but we bring him back down to earth every now and then and you know what? He graciously accepts it.”
Tad is gratified that perhaps he sets an example for others but for him, it’s about the music.
“Music is like another language. You can send a message to someone without words and that’s the cool thing about it,” Tad said. “When I perform music, I like to think that I’m kind of in my own little world. And I like to build that world with artwork. I like to paint every little detail. I like to fill it in with emotions and make it so beautiful so when it comes out to the audience, they’re awed by it, surprised by it and they see my picture and what I’m trying to give them through my musical art.”
“If you close your eyes, or you look a different direction, you would have no clue,” said his mother.
And that opens a lot of eyes.
Heather LaRoi can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 238, or by e-mail at hlaroi@postcrescent.com
Music to your ears....
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Music to your ears....
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