At 25, Leonard Bernstein protégé, John Bayless, debuted at Carnegie Hall, performing “Rhapsody in Blue” with full orchestra. His jaw-dropping technical prowess at the piano initiated a 30-year-long concert and recording career as a solo pianist, composer, and improvisor. At 54, a left-brain stroke immobilized his dominant right side. Soon after his husband, Bruce, died of cancer. The music stopped. John’s magical ‘first act’ disappeared.

Left Alone Rhapsody chronicles John’s rise from four-year-old Texas musical prodigy playing the organ in his small-town Southern Baptist church, to international stardom; John’s fall post-stroke and courageous struggle to transcend paralysis; and John’s determination to reinvent himself as a one-handed musician and storyteller.

As neurologists discuss his brain, rabbis his ‘Jewish soul,’ and Yamaha’s representatives their amazing life-changing, state-of-the-art Disklavier piano technology, which might allow him to play again with ‘two hands,’ John Bayless attempts a courageous career comeback. The question is:  With just his left hand alone, how far will he go?  This is John’s musical story.