Alexei Sultanov was 7 when he began performing as a soloist with professional orchestras in his native Uzbekistan. He was 19 when he became the youngest pianist ever to win the prestigious Van Cliburn Competition. And he was barely 30 when five simultaneous strokes wracked his brain and left him a shell of the energetic young musician he had always been. “Though doctors eventually stanched the hemorrhage, the damage was done. The strokes destroyed portions of his brain that are central to normal life and to the extraordinarily complex task of making music.”