Aspiring singer Scott Mannis, who suffers from a rare form of epilepsy, is donating a portion of proceeds for his first album to the Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy, which he has worked with before as the organization works to find a cure for the debilitating disorder. Constance Milstein serves on the CURE Board of Directors and is committed not only to finding a cure for the disease but erasing the stigma of epilepsy.
When Mannis was 17 years old, he began having spells during which he would lose feeling on the left side of his body. It was not until he was 20 years old that doctors diagnosed him with a rare type of epilepsy whose symptoms can be minimized, but for which there is no cure. Soon after, Mannis discovered a link between music and his disease.
“By 2008, the seizures got bad enough that I wasn’t able to walk without falling,” he said in an interview with Billboard. “The only time I didn’t have them was when I was singing.”
Susan Collins, a music industry veteran, was introduced to Mannis through a friend of his mother. After hearing a few of the young musician’s tracks, she signed on as Mannis’ vocal coach a mentor. In 2009 she took Mannis into the studio of Art Labriola, a Grammy Award-winning producer, to record a demo. Over the next two years, the trio continued to work together (while Mannis attended classes at Columbia University) and eventually realized they had enough recorded for a full album. The album was released Dec. 20 and Mannis has already donated $500 raised during the album release party to CURE and plans to continue to donate as he sells more albums and performs at various benefits. The album is available for purchase on iTunes, Amazon and CD Baby.
