Music Articles

In line with the mission of Bringing Music to Life, the four individuals featured in the film, “The Last Repair Shop”, ensure that no student is deprived of the joy of music. In their words what they do is “not just instrument repair.” It prevents the unthinkable. “Students without instruments? No, no not in our city!”

It is almost as if these folks are playing our song, telling the Bringing Music to Life story. This inspiring documentary gets to the heart of what we do and why we do it.

The film is now available on the LATimes YouTube channel. Watch it here!

Read the following latimes.com article to learn more.

latimes.com

Presented by L.A. Times Studios and Searchlight Pictures, “The Last Repair Shop” is a documentary short film about the technicians maintaining student instruments in the L.A. Unified School District. Directed by award-winning filmmaker and musician Kris Bowers and Oscar-winning director Ben Proudfoot, the film has been nominated for best documentary short for the 2024 Academy Awards. The nominations were announced this morning via livestream from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The film introduces four characters who have dedicated themselves to look after more than 80,000 student instruments, offering the gift of music to the schoolchildren of Los Angeles.

“‘The Last Repair Shop’ is a love letter to our city. It’s a testament to understanding how broken something is — and fixing it anyway,” wrote Bowers in an introduction to the film. “And it’s a tribute to those who toil away, largely without thanks, in service of helping the next generation grow in harmony.”

By 9NEWS.com

Our repair partner Rocky Mountain Music Repair is spreading holiday cheer!

By OLIVIA HAMPTON, BARRY GORDEMER

Crisp, warm, responsive. The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) is on a journey to meet these benchmarks under the baton of music director Gianandrea Noseda. One of the ways in which he’s shaping a new sound is through some very old instruments. The oldest is a violin made in 1686 in Cremona, Italy. 

Since 2019, Noseda has been quietly loaning 17th – 19th century Italian string instruments from his private collection to the NSO. The musicians playing them had no idea that they came from their conductor — until now.

“I’m not saying that good instruments make the orchestra; the orchestra is made by great musicians. But if you give a good driver a good Ferrari, the driver also will drive faster,” Noseda told NPR’s Leila Fadel in an interview at his office in Washington, D.C.

There are lots of parallels between this story and the story of Bringing Music to Life. Read or listen to the story here.

By SARAH DIAMOND

Covid Stopped the music. Now this school is striking up the band again.

Surrounded by classroom walls hung with colorful violins and music theory posters, Roshan Reddy counted to three. He raised his palm, a chorus of shiny horns and woodwinds hummed to life, and the first notes of Adele’s “Easy on Me” filled the band room at P.S. 11 elementary school in Brooklyn.

Despite clarinet squeaks and the occasional bleat of a rogue saxophone, almost every student was smiling.

 A goal of the band program is to prepare students for more challenging music instruction. But mostly, Mr. Reddy says, he just wants kids to leave school loving music.

“It’s not about trying to create a little Mozart, it’s about students finding their own strength,” he said. “We’re the people who have to carry music through this moment.”

Experience the full article here. Read the article. Watch videos of P.S. 11 musicians. And link to more information about the value of music education.

CAROLINE SHAW IS MAKING CLASSICAL COOL

By JONATHAN GHARRAIE

Her innovative work won her a Pulitzer Prize at age 30. She’s collaborate with Kanye and Nas. What does her success mean for the long-suffering genre?

“I started on a 64th-size violin,” she recalls. Shaw fell in love with classical music—singing in a church choir and watching Amadeus over and over. She had a Lisa Loeb tape and a passing acquaintance with 4 Non Blondes, but by middle school, classical music was key to her identity.

Read the full article here.

This article was published online on February 13, 2021. It appears in the March, 2021 issue of the publication.