This past Sunday, the Handel and Haydn Society gave a concert at Symphony Hall in Boston. But what might have been the audience's favorite moment did not come from the stage.
Just after the final note of Mozart's "Masonic Funeral Music," a lone child's voice exclaimed, "Wow!" The rest of the audience responded with joyous laughter and applause in agreement. You can hear the moment in this clip:
The child, who has been nicknamed The "Wow" Kid, is 9-year-old Ronan Mattin of Kensington, New Hampshire. His grandfather, Stephen Mattin, told WGBH, "I can count on one hand the number of times that [he's] spontaneously ever come out with some expression of how he's feeling." Ronan is on the autism spectrum and is primarily non-verbal.
After the concert, David Snead, president and CEO of the Handel and Haydn Society, appealed to the public to find the identity of the boy. Yesterday, Stephen Mattin's sister-in-law contacted the orchestra after learning of the search. The orchestra has connected with the family to arrange a trip to meet their artistic director, Harry Christophers, and to gift them a recording of the concert.
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