Chicago pianist 'grateful' to make music again after life-changing brain surgery [View all]

A hospital bed in Florida isn’t Mark Burnell’s typical performance venue. But this spring, with an electric keyboard in his lap and 14 holes drilled into his skull, the longtime Chicago musician struck up a melody on the old ivories.

The tune was a time-honored, and fitting, classic from “The Wizard of Oz”: the Scarecrow’s seminal hit, “If I Only Had a Brain.”

Standing bedside, Burnell’s wife, Anne, sang along. “I would not be just a nothin’ my head all full of stuffin’, my heart all full of pain,” she crooned. “And perhaps I’ll deserve you, and be even worthy of you, if I only had a brain.”

Burnell, a pianist and singer who has gigged, directed and taught across Chicago since 1989, underwent brain surgery in April at a Mayo Clinic campus in Florida, after a year and a half spent managing monthly seizures. The procedure used innovative brain mapping techniques and even mid-surgery performances by Burnell himself to see through.

But ultimately, the treatment proved successful at tempering Burnell’s epilepsy, he and his surgical team say. Now, a few months into recovery, the Burnells on Thursday night will be staging their first large public concert since Burnell’s surgery.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/07/31/chicago-pianist-grateful-to-make-music-again-after-life-changing-brain-surgery/

The things they can do now...