VARIOUS: WORLD PREMIERE OF THE FILM "MUSIC OF THE HEART"

Record ID: 388664

  • Title: VARIOUS: WORLD PREMIERE OF THE FILM "MUSIC OF THE HEART"
  • Date: 31st October 1999
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (OCTOBER 2) (RTV-LA) (SOUNDBITE) (ENGLISH) MERYL STREEP SAYING OF THE FILM'S CARNEGE HALL CONCERT SCENE, They had put an ad in the paper and they said, if you come to Carnege Hall all dressed up and listen to this concert in the movie, we will give you 60 dollars for your favorite charity and basically they hoped they would fill it a
  • Embargoed: 15th November 1999 12:00
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  • Location: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES AND FILM LOCATIONS
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA4I75R99VBAN5TSWX5O0GGQTFA
  • Story Text: With a timely and emotional social issue in tow, stars Meryl Streep, Angela Basset and singer turned actor Gloria Estefan attended the World Premiere of their newest film "Music of the Heart" on Tuesday, October 26 in New York.It's the first non-horror film from director Wes Craven.
    Music of the Heart is the story of real life music teacher Roberta Guaspari, whose innovative and unorthodox violin class in the rough and tumble New York neighborhood of East Harlem was the subject of a 1996 Oscar nominated documentary called "Small Wonders." Bob and Harvey Weinstein, whose Miramax Films owned the documentary, convinced Guaspari to allow them to produce a fictional feature film based on her life.
    The result is "Music of the Heart," the first major non-horror film directed by Wes Craven, whose "Scream" film series is credited with re-invigorating the thriller genre in the past few years.Craven has always wanted to break out of the slasher and gore genre that Hollywood has stuck him in for the past two decades, and this film was Miramax's reward to him for the success of the "Scream" films.
    After a brief casting of Madonna in the lead role, Craven settled on two time Oscar winner Meryl Streep as the tough violinist turned dedicated teacher, who deals with uncooperative students, recalcitrant parents and a cash-strapped school district that votes to shut her program down after 10 years in existence.
    Just as in the real life case, the film follows Guaspari as she single-handedly fights to save the program, culminating in a sold out, black tie benefit concert at the world famous Carnege Hall featuring her students playing along with world class musicians such as Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern and Joshua Bell.The violinsts all appear in the film's climatic scene, filmed on location inside the cavernous New York venue.
    For Streep, taking on the life and mannerisms of such a larger-than-life character as Guaspari was the easy part.The bigger challenge was learning to play the violin, an instrument she never touched prior to this movie.
    This entailed four to six hours of intensive violin instruction each day for months before production began.
    Streep even brought the instrument on the road with her and practiced while she was promoting her two most recent films.
    It all lead up to the day she would have to play Bach's Double Contada in front of thw world's greatest violinsts and a packed house at Carnege Hall.
    Ironically, she also relied on the children who were playing her students in the film.More than half of the 150 kids who appear in the movie had studied with the real life Guaspari, and they helped Streep with her bowing and fingering on a daily basis.
    Also in the cast are Oscar nominee Angela Bassett as the school's tough but caring principal, Aidan Quinn as Streep's on-again, off-again lover, Cloris Leachman as her mother, Kieran Culkin as one of her sons, and pop star Gloria Estefan as a fellow teacher.
    Although she only plays in small role, this is Estefan's first acting experience in a feature film.She had been wanting to branch out into acting for some time, but she was waiting for the right project to come along.Given her well-publicized involvement with Save the Music, a charity organization dedicated to music education in public schools, this seemed like the perfect way to start her acting career.
    "Music of the Heart" opens in theaters throughout the United States on Friday, October 29.
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