Oscar-winning directors Ben Proudfoot (left) and Kris Bowers (right) pose with student musicians who were their guests at the 96th Oscars Awards ceremony on Sunday, March 10, 2024. Photo Credit: John Shearer, Black Entertainment Television, LLC
Composer and director Kris Bowers delivered remarks about the power and importance of music education during his Oscar acceptance speech on Sunday, March 10, 2024. He was recognized by the Motion Picture Academy for his film The Last Repair Shop, which he co-directed with Ben Proudfoot. The production garnered the Academy Award in the category of Best Documentary Short Film.
“Music education isn’t just about creating incredible musicians,” declared Bowers. “It’s about creating incredible humans,” he said. Bowers went on to explain the importance of music education in a time of increased technology usage by young people. “We’re living in pretty traumatic times and spending less than 30 seconds on Instagram I can feel pretty anxious and depressed,” asserts Bowers. “And you have so many kids that don’t have the tools to process those feelings,” he continued. “The arts are an incredibly important vehicle to communicate through these times.” Proudfoot added, “We hope young people will put down their phones and pick up a saxophone.”
The film’s subject matter shines a spotlight on the inspirational story of a Los Angeles workshop that repairs broken musical instruments that are loaned to over 80,000 public school students free of charge. Los Angeles Unified is the only big city school system that provides free bassoons, trombones, sousaphones, cellos, piccolos, and every other kind of instrument to their student musicians.
In this downtown workshop, a team of four technicians maintain the instruments. The four technicians profiled in the documentary are Dana Atkinson, who repairs stringed instruments; Duane Michaels, who works on woodwinds; Paty Moreno, who repairs brass instrument; and Steve Bagmanyan, who began as a piano tuner but has. now become supervisor of the shop.
