Special Interest, Power of Music

ALICE'S PIANO: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer by Melissa Mueller and Reinhardt Piechocki.

An award-winning documentary on the power of music to change us and sustain us at all stages of life. Interviews with Bobby McFerrin, Oliver Sacks and others prominent in the music fields.

Strengthening Our Minds Across a Lifetime. This 2-part PBS program--The Art of Connection and Creativity--reveals the vital role the arts play from our earliest to our final years of life.

There's music in the wind and sky. Can you hear it? And there's hope. Can you feel it? The boy called August Rush can. In this musical odyssey he also discovers the musical talent hidden within himself. 

An all-star lineup of musicians reflects on the genius and power of Bach, and performs some of his greatest works.

by Barry Green.  Energize music making with a myriad of suggestions to create joy and excitement in performance. 

Traces the personal and musical career of 10-time Grammy Award winner Bobby McFerrin,

The true story of pianist Alice Herz-Sommer, the world's oldest living Holocaust survivor by Caroline Stoessinger, with a Foreword by Vaclav Havel.

Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema, and the Transformative Power of Music by Tricia Tunstall.

When a workaholic accountant's life begins to fall apart, he tries to start a choir at a local homeless shelter. Inspiring and based on a true story.

Finding Happiness Singing with Others by Stacy Horn. 

250 kids from 25 nations come together to rehearse and dance Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic.

Music has the power to overcome fear, prejudice, animosity and build understanding through a common artful purpose. Upper elementary children in NYC and Jaffa learn to dance TOGETHER, and enjoy it and each other.

When Jewish and Palestinian grade schoolers meet in a ballroom dance class in Jaffa, Israel, sparks fly. Pierre Dulaine is challenged to teach not just dance but the arts of communication and teamwork.

Get inspired by NYC 5th graders from high poverty districts as they are taught  foxtrot, tango, rumba, meregue for a competition and grow into poised and motivated young people.  

Honky tonk music and a honky tonk life—with music.

by Nina Nolan, illus. by John Holyfield. People might say she was born with nothing. But little Mahalia had something: a voice bigger than she was.

A documentary and 2 performances. 

Ben Kingsley stars in Tony Palmer's film dramatizing the life of Shostakovich, who opposed the directives of Stalin and defied him with his music. 

A live-action retelling of how the best-loved carol was written on a snowy night in 1818, and how it has affected generations since.