A film about creativity and the human spirit

The intersection of art and life are at the core of MUSIC FROM THE INSIDE OUT, a provocative 90-minute musical journey through the lives of the 105 musicians of The Philadelphia Orchestra.  It is the Orchestra’s first film appearance since Disney’s Fantasia in 1940.

In MUSIC FROM THE INSIDE OUT, it is musicians themselves who come to the forefront, rather than the conductor or star soloist.  Award-winning filmmaker Daniel Anker weaves together a remarkable mosaic of the stories, ideas, experiences and music-making that form the heart of these musician’s lives, both inside and outside the concert hall.  In doing so, Anker breaks down the barriers that have long separated orchestra musicians and their audiences, and ultimately gets to the essence of the magic and the mystery of music itself.

Filmed over the course of five years on three continents, the film has been, since its inception, a unique collaboration between the filmmaker and the musicians themselves.  The project originated in 2000 at a time of deep introspection among American symphony orchestras.  The musicians, struggling to address changes in their professional lives, gathered for a series of fascinating dialogues about why and how they do what they do.  Anker encouraged them to explore the unanswerable in music, to find connections between their everyday lives and the creative process. Anker and his team then followed the stories that emerged from these workshops, and was granted unprecedented access to these musicians both onstage and off.

While MUSIC FROM THE INSIDE OUT is about the many people within the ensemble, it is ultimately an intimate musical journey.  Each musician’s story reveals a struggle to maintain individuality, to test musical boundaries, and to choose the path of an artist.  Told without host or narrator, the stories of these musicians are interwoven, and build upon each other to ultimately reveal the diversity of personalities that make up a symphony orchestra.

• Israeli Cellist Udi Bar-David begins a collaboration with Palestinian musician Simon Shaheen, revealing how music can bring us together when politics tears us apart.
   
• Trombonist Nitzan Haroz heads to a salsa club after a Thursday night concert and ultimately joins the band.
   
• French Horn player Adam Unsworth finds that his music-making is enhanced by both the discipline of marathon running, and the freedom of Jazz improvisation.
   
• Violist Judy Geist explores the role of color in her dual life as both an accomplished painter and a musician.
   
• Concertmaster David Kim reveals how his mother’s death forced him to reevaluate his life, and ultimately abandon his quest for a solo career.  But his is a story not of compromise but of transcendence, as he realizes that the true power of music may lie in the collaborations with his peers.

The soundtrack of MUSIC FROM THE INSIDE OUT features more than 35 different musical works from an eclectic array of styles -- from salsa, jazz, and bluegrass to Middle Eastern and Asian music, to string quartets and symphonies.

A nominee for the International Documentary Associations prestigious IDA Award for Distinguished Documentary Feature and an official selection of the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and the American Film Institute’s AFI-Silverdocs International Documentary Festival, the film is being released nationally by Emerging Pictures beginning with its premiere run at Philadelphia’s Ritz Theater 5 beginning April 22nd.  The film will have its gala premiere as the closing night feature of the Philadelphia Film Festival on April 20th.

Beyond the film’s commercial release, there will be a broad educational distribution and outreach initiative, following in the footsteps of Leonard Bernstein’s television “Young Peoples Concerts”  and Wynton Marsalis’ “Marsalis on Music.”  But unlike other music films used in the classroom, which have traditionally focused on teaching music’s fundamentals, the educational premise of MUSIC FROM THE INSIDE OUT is that it is possible to fully engage in and enjoy music with little knowledge beyond one’s own human experience and aesthetic response.  A newly created curriculum has been developed in conjunction with nationally renowned arts educators, music teachers as well as literacy teachers, and will include lessons for general educators including teachers of science, social studies, and English.

MUSIC FROM THE INSIDE OUT is a production of Anker Productions, Inc.  Funding sources include Carole Haas Gravagno, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Presser Foundation, the William Penn Foundation, Peter L. Buttenwieser and Terry Marek. the Phoebe Haas Trust A, The Pew Charitable Trusts, ITVS: The Independent Television Service, The Arcadia Foundation, Joanna McNeil, and the James and Agnes Kim Foundation.