Musical bolt from the blue

Sometime during the Citadel-Wofford game on Saturday, folks in the stands will be serenaded by piano music from the heavens.

In more ways than one.

Andy Solomon, El Cid's associate athletic director, says it probably will be the first time classical music has ever been played at a college football game. But even more interesting is the story behind the music.

You see, it was composed by Dr. Anthony Cicoria, class of '74, who's in town for his 35th reunion.

Cicoria was an interesting, accomplished guy even before he started playing classical piano: A former defensive lineman at The Citadel, he earned All-Southern Conference and All-State honors in 1973. He got his medical degrees from MUSC and is now an orthopedic surgeon in New York.

But here's the real kicker: Cicoria started playing piano and composing classical music shortly after he was struck by lightning.

A flash of light

It sounds like a superhero's origin story: Cicoria was manning the barbecue at a family reunion in 1994 when he went to call his mother on a pay phone. During a storm.

A bolt of lightning hit the building, the electrical surge snaking through the building and coming out through, yes, the phone.

"I saw that big flash of light coming out of the receiver about a half-foot away from me," he recalled.

Luckily for him, there was a nurse waiting to use the phone. As Cicoria says, if it's not your time, you ain't going anywhere. This is advice from a guy who says he had a 15-minute out-of-body experience after the lightning strike.

He says he saw his mother-in-law running, screaming, and turned to see her staring down at his own body. He saw a lot of things, amazing things. Things that made him not want to come back. But shortly after he did, the music started.

A bolt of inspiration

A few weeks after his recovery, Cicoria began craving piano music -- quite the departure from a guy who'd grown up on Led Zeppelin. He bought a CD by a famous Russian composer playing Chopin. He drove his family crazy.

One night, he dreamed he was playing piano on stage before a crowd. The music was his own. When he woke up, Cicoria began the long process of learning piano and recording the tunes that ran through his head as if they'd been downloaded there.

In 2008, he played his first concert and, on Saturday, The Citadel will hear that same music.

A lot of people with amazing stories like this are discounted, questioned. Because of his medical background, Cicoria is taken more seriously. He's been in The New Yorker, on BBC, the subject of a book.

Cicoria can talk about the biology of it, the idea that the lightning rearranged the circuits in his brain, helped him realize some potential that he had.

"Or maybe it helped me tap into the place music comes from," he says. "A lot of the composers -- Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart -- talked about tuning into the music. They would say the music came from Heaven."

It certainly seems the Old Masters knew what they were talking about.

Reach Brian Hicks at 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com. Read more columns by Brian Hicks here.