The LAUSD Education Foundation is embarking on a serious capital marketing campaign to profit the musical instrument restore operation documented within the Oscar-nominated movie The Last Repair Shop.
The $15 million marketing campaign, revealed at an occasion at Hollywood High School Tuesday evening, will put money into the restore workshop’s expert craftspeople and assist workers, and fund “a student apprenticeship program that will build the next generation of instrument technicians.”
Filmmakers and Kris Bowers made the shock announcement after a screening of their movie within the faculty’s auditorium, positioned inside a brief distance from the place the Oscar ceremony will happen on March 10, on the Dolby Theatre at Ovation on Hollywood & Highland.
The Hollywood High School auditorium exterior with banners that includes the solid of ‘The Last Repair Shop’
Matthew Carey
The documentary brief, distributed by Searchlight Pictures and L.A. Times Studios, tells the transferring life tales of 4 of the important thing professionals who preserve 80,000 musical devices supplied freed from cost to any and all college students of the L.A. Unified School District: Dana Atkinson, who repairs stringed devices, Duane Michaels (woodwinds), Paty Moreno (brass), and Steve Bagmanyan, who rose from piano tuner to turn out to be supervisor of the store. It additionally showcases the abilities of younger musicians who profit from the LAUSD’s musical instrument program – youngsters on violin, piano, sousaphone, sax, and nearly each different instrument possible. Almost the whole solid was readily available for Tuesday evening’s occasion.
Young musicians featured in ‘The Last Repair Shop’ (L-R) Porché Brinker, Ismerai Calcaneo, and Amanda Nova, pose with co-directors Kris Bowers and Ben Proudfoot.
Photo by Todd Williamson
Bowers, a gifted pianist and main Hollywood composer (Ava DuVernay’s Origin, Green Book, Bob Marley: One Love, The Color Purple) attended LAUSD faculties and developed his expertise on pianos maintained by Bagmanyan. “Bowers and Searchlight Pictures made the first gift of the campaign by giving restored 1913 Steinway & Sons K-52 upright piano to Third Street Elementary School, where Kris Bowers attended as a young man,” a launch famous.
On Tuesday evening, Bowers carried out on that piano, becoming a member of an all-city marching band in a number of musical numbers, together with a rendition of the movie’s closing credit, which encompasses a piece he composed known as “The Alumni.”
“Ben and I can’t think of a better impact for our film to make,” Bowers mentioned of the capital marketing campaign. “I came up learning piano on an LAUSD upright. I know firsthand what having access to a working instrument can mean for a young kid who yearns to express themselves through music. And we are so excited that the LAUSD Education Foundation and The Broad Foundation have been inspired by our film to launch this worthy campaign that will change the lives of young Angelenos for generations to come.”
Proudfoot and Bowers earned Oscar nominations in 2021 for his or her brief documentary A Concerto Is a Conversation, which centered on Bowers’ grandfather, Horace Bowers Sr. Proudfoot gained the Oscar in 2022 for his brief The Queen of Basketball, about hoops star Lucy Harris.
The Last Repair Shop, winner of the Critics’ Choice Documentary Award for finest brief amongst different honors, will be seen free of charge on L.A. Times’ YouTube channel, in addition to streaming platforms Disney+ and Hulu.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has come on board as an early supporter of the capital marketing campaign. Public donations to The Last Repair Shop Fund will be made at thelastrepairshop.com.
In the video beneath, Bowers on piano joins an all-city marching band to carry out his composition “The Alumni,” with Vince Womack conducting.