documentary
Recommended Music Documentary of The Week: “The Last Repair Shop”
Recently made it onto the on-demand platform Disney+ is a portly but short 40-minute documentary.
In a nondescript warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain over 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind.
The documentary — directed by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers — featured four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of the recording capital of the world.
With their lives brought to the front of the film’s camera, it isn’t just Duane Michaels’ memorable moments watching the Frankenstein movie that got him to pick up the fiddle, it was also Steve Bagmanyan’s experience of the war that saw him flee to the United States.
“The Alumni” composition at the end, played alongside the credits of the film, was written by Kris Bowers & performed by the L.A.U.S.D Alumni.
The film features Dana Atkinson, Duane Michaels, Paty Moreno, Steve Bagmanyan, Ken Burget (The piano tuner), and Vincent Womack (L.A.U.S.D. Music Teacher since 1987). With Repair Shop Hoedown performed by Duane Michaels.
Presented by L.A. Times Short Docs & Searchlight Pictures, the film, is one of the winners of the documentary short category at the 2024 Academy Awards.
Watch the film here via YouTube.
Watch also: Kris Bower’s Project with the American Youth Symphony and violin soloist Charles Yang.
Description: In the midst of recording ‘For A Younger Self’ at FOX Studios in the wake of the global pandemic, this mini-documentary goes behind the scenes of the collaboration between Kris Bowers and the American Youth Symphony (AYS) under Carlos Izcaray, with soloist Charles Yang.
For more information about Kris Bowers, visit his official website here.
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