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  • Glenn Gould Foundation Web Page

  • Bach on Film - January, 2008 by Kevin Bazzana

  • The American documentary filmmaker Michael Lawrence recently began production of a major new film about Johann Sebastian Bach. Lawrence is himself a musician: he studied guitar at the Peabody Conservatory, in Baltimore, from which he graduated in 1970, and he has performed widely on the instrument; he has also composed music for films. Over the years, he has written, produced, and directed more than twenty documentaries, which have been widely distributed and have won many awards. They cover a wide variety of subjects, including the Library of Congress, the quiz-show scandal, the astronaut John Glenn, the Unabomber, the evolution of human thought and culture, the power of television advertising, and life in “an alternative educational and spiritual community.” In 1980, Lawrence made his first music-related film, The Mind of Music, “an exploration of the magical force of music in the lives of human beings,” and his two most recent documentaries are both about guitarists: Aaron Shearer: A Life with the Guitar (2005) and Manuel Barrueco: A Gift and a Life (2006).
    “My greatest love is Bach,” Lawrence says. “He has driven my life. But there hasn’t been a decent film made on Bach. Bach films are either stuffy, period-looking things, or they just involve going around Germany to places where he lived.” He decided instead to invite world-class Bach performers to play and to share their personal feelings about the music. “I’m dealing with people who have a very strong personal connection to Bach,” Lawrence says. “I’ll be getting them to talk about Bach. The idea is to let the audience into the experience.” The film will thus be less a biography than a series of reflections on the power and genius of Bach’s music.

    Lawrence had intended to make a modest, personal film, but then, to his own surprise, most of the eminent Bachians he approached agreed eagerly to participate. He finds himself now at work on a major international production, and jokes that the resulting film may have to be “ten hours long.” Among the performers who have confirmed that they will participate, or have expressed interest in doing so, are the pianists Simone Dinnerstein, Joao Carlos Martins, and Charles Rosen; the organist Felix Hell; the violinist Hilary Hahn; the cellists Matt Haimowitz and Yo-Yo Ma; the bassist Edgar Meyer; the guitarist Manuel Barrueco; the banjoist Béla Fleck; and the singers Bobby McFerrin and Ward Swingle. Others participants will include the Bach scholar Christoph Wolff; the writers Benjamin Ivry, Tim Page, and Teri Noel Towe; the composer Peter Schickele, creator of the fictitious character “P. D. Q. Bach”; and the computer-game designer Sid Meier, who wrote an interactive music-generating program for 3DO called “C.P.U. Bach” (pun obviously intended).

    The two most admired Bach pianists of the twentieth century will also participate posthumously: Rosalyn Tureck (1914-2003), and Glenn Gould, whose estate has already thrown its support behind the film. Gould, in fact, was one of the musical inspirations for this project. A major segment of the film will be devoted to Gould, who, Lawrence says, will also be a kind of “shadow” throughout the film: “Nobody has influenced me and everyone else in the film more than Gould.”

    The documentary is being shot on high-definition videotape, and Lawrence plans to release it eventually as a two-DVD set, one disc holding the film itself, with its blend of conversation and music, the other disc being a bonus devoted to musical performances. On December 2, he presented a polished ten-minute excerpt from the film-in-progress at the prestigious “Entertainment Gathering” at the Getty Center, in Los Angeles; this and other clips from it can be viewed at YouTube and at the website of Michael Lawrence Films (www.mlfilms.com).
Kevin Bazzana is the author of "Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould"

  • Michael Lawrence's 'Bach Project' on track

    Critical Mass
    Critical Mass is written by the Sun's critics for TV, music, movies, art, theater, media and more.

    Michael Lawrence's 'Bach Project' on track
    The Bach Project, an ambitious attempt by Baltimore filmmaker Michael Lawrence to get to the heart of Bach through musicians who are drawn to his work, is moving along. Lawrence has already filmed interviews and performance segments with several artists, and more are on the schedule (a separate music-only DVD is planned to supplement a documentary-style disc). And earlier this month at the starry Entertainment Gathering 2007 at the Getty Center in Los Angeles -- which drew the likes of comedian Jonathan Winters, pianist Leon Fleisher, authors Amy Tan and Marvin Minsky and film director Jesse Dylan -- Lawrence made a successful pitch for funding to complete the project.
    A sample of the Bach film was screened on the first day of the L.A. conference. "It was very well received," Lawrence says in an email, "and when the house lights came up, people were still applauding. After the screening, I gave a brief talk and mentioned the funding needs of the project. I closed my presentation with the story of Carl Sagan asking Dr. Lewis Thomas what we should include in the Voyager 1 mission - the first probe to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Thomas suggested to Sagan, ‘I think we should send all of Bach -- but of course we would be bragging.’ I ended the presentation by commenting that Voyager 1 has now left our solar system and is streaking through the Milky Way with Bach as our calling card.
    "A number of people came up to me after the screening offering to contribute to the project including John Abele, the founder and chairman of Boston Scientific. When I returned to Baltimore, I received an email from John saying that he will donate a significant amount to the project in an out right grant and also put up an even larger amount in matching funds. A check from the Argosy Foundation, his family foundation, will be sent to the Bach Project's non-profit sponsor The Handel Choir of Baltimore."
    To get an advance look at the Bach Project, go to http://www.mlfilms.com/productions/bach_project. There are clips of Baltimore-based guitarist Manuel Barrueco, cellist Matt Haimovitz and others. Next week, Lawrence will film a segment with pianist Simone Dinnerstein, whose recent recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations caused quite a stir.

    Posted by Tim Smith on December 14, 2007 11:49 AM
  • July 20, 2007 Tim Smith's Baltimore Sun Article on the Bach Project


  • Lawrence to give Bach lots of play
    Noted artists to have a hand in film's focus on composer's music


  • By Tim Smith
    Sun Music Critic
    July 20, 2007


    "My greatest love is Bach," says Baltimore filmmaker Michael Lawrence. "He has driven my life. But there hasn't been a decent film made on Bach."


    Lawrence plans to change that.


    Filming is set to start next month on a project that will focus not on the biographical side of Johann Sebastian Bach but rather on the power and genius of his music and the artists who are drawn to it.


    "Bach films are either stuffy, period-looking things, or they just involve going around Germany to places where he lived," Lawrence says. "I'm dealing with people who have a very strong personal connection to Bach. I'll be getting them to talk about Bach. The idea is to let the audience into the experience."


    Lawrence expects to shoot in Baltimore and other locations. He approached an impressive and wide-ranging lineup of Bach-inspired musicians to be in the film, including pianists Leon Fleisher and Joao Carlos Martins; violinist Hilary Hahn; classical/bluegrass/jazz artists Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer; jazz pianist Dave Brubeck; and composer/humorist Peter Schickele (creator of the immortal, imaginary P.D.Q. Bach).


    "To my surprise, they're all interested in doing the thing," the filmmaker says. "I've joked that it's going to have to be 10 hours long." Lawrence envisions a two-disc DVD product when he's finished - the film, which will blend conversation and music, and an extra all-music disc. The stocky, bushy-bearded, Indiana-born Lawrence, 62, has been making music-related films for the past several years. Recent releases include Aaron Shearer: A Life with the Guitar, devoted to one of the most influential teachers of classical guitar (Lawrence studied guitar with Shearer at the Peabody Institute, from which he graduated in 1970).


    Before picking up a camera, Lawrence composed scores for several films, among them Julian Krainin's Emmy-winning 1969 documentary The Other Americans. Lawrence once had a studio in downtown Baltimore but now works mostly out of a room in the Dundalk house where he and his wife live.

    The Bach film will mark Lawrence's first experience with the high-definition format. "It's a little scary," he says. "I have to learn a whole new technology, a new camera, a new editing system."

    The first filming session will be in August at Peabody with organist Felix Hell. "I have to tell you I always thought of organ music as a big pile of mush," Lawrence says, "but I realized it was so important to Bach's life, so we have to have it in the film."

    Lawrence plans to intersperse footage of Hell's playing with shots of the insides of the instrument. "You'll never have seen the organ as you will in this movie," he says.

    Musicologist and pianist Charles Rosen will be filmed playing Bach in his New York apartment. A variety of other locations will be used as the project progresses. "One thing I don't worry about is making a good film," Lawrence says. "With the quality of these musicians, it will be a good film. But I may well have to pay for it myself."

    As Lawrence is the first to admit, that won't be easy.

    "I never made much money as a filmmaker," he says. "I've got about $6,000 in the bank for this film ... $75,000 is all I need. I work cheap. It would be good for a corporation to have their name on the film. People love Bach all over the world."

  • tim.smith@baltsun.com

  • May, 2007 Guitar Review Magazine, Winter 2007 Manuel Barrueco: A Gift and a Life
  • Director Michael Lawrence has produced the first documentary about a classical guitarist that could be shown in an actual movie theater. I thought I knew all there was to know about Manuel Barrueco: that he was originally from Cuba and ushered in a new way of playing. This, as veteran director Michael Lawrence shows, is only the tip of the iceberg.

    Lawrence's documentary starts out in Santiago de Cuba, where Barrueco was born and began playing guitar. Barrueco recounts how Castro's coming to power was an exhilarating experience that quickly changed. According to Barrueco, the most painful experience of his life was leaving his hometown on a train, leaving all of his relatives behind. Upon arriving in Miami, a place Manuel liked, his parents quickly realized that it would be beneficial for their son's musical development to move north. Settling in Newark, New Jersey Manuel had a hard time adjusting. Concerning his public high school experience, Barrueco notes that, "It seemed to me that lunch hour meant that the Italian kids and the black kids wanted to kill each other. There were a lot of gangs in the area...I hated living there." Despite these years, when support for his playing was limited, Barrueco did end up at Peabody. Once there, he did not practice at all: "I really didn't feel like playing. I became rebellious...all I did was basically party the whole time." Toward the end of his undergraduate career, however, Barrueco did start to practice seriously. Faculty members quickly recognized his talent, and before he knew it he was making his Carnegie Hall debut. Weighing in throughout the film are such luminaries as David Tanenbaum, David Russell, Andy Summers, Eliot Fisk, Al Di Meola and Placido Domingo, among others. It is the insights of the people who know him, most of whom have played or recorded with the maestro, that really shed light on Mr. Barrueco as an artist. Whether you are a Barrueco fan, or just enjoy a good story, there is something here for everyone.
  • Ian Gallagher, Guitar Review
  • March, 2007 The National Journal of the Music Library Association, March '07 issue
  • Manuel Barrueco is considered to be one of the finest classical guitarists performing today and the DVD of Manuel Barrueco: A Gift and a Life explains how that came to be. Michael Lawrence did a fine job of producing and directing this hour program. With dazzling footage of Barrueco performing and enlightening and fascinating interviews, world acclaimed musicians detail the current phase of Barrueco’s career. Camera angles allow excellent views of the guitarist’s superb technique while the audio quality provides a fine opportunity to experience this artist’s marvelous tone production and tasteful nuance of expression. This offering by Michael Lawrence will be a valuable addition to any DVD collection.
  • Randall Zwally, The National Journal of the Music Library Association
  • December 2006 - American Public Television announces that Manuel Barrueco: A Gift and a Life will be broadcast in 2007 by WNET, NYC and other PBS stations around the country.
  • September 24, 2006 — KQED San Francisco Broadcast of Manuel Barrueco: A Gift and a Life
  • July 2006 - Michael Lawrence Films Productions Reviewed by Fanfare Classical Music Magazine
  • July 2006 - New Michael Lawrence web site online

Welcome to the new MLFilms.com web site

Fanfare Classical Music Reviews Magazine has reviewed three of Michael Lawrence Films' productions. Below is the review by columnist Robert Schulslaper.

Fanfare Classical Music Magazine Reviews, Sept/Oct, 2006
Manuel Barrueco, a Gift and a Life
Aaron Shearer: A Life With The Guitar
The Mind of Music

As they like to say in Hollywood, Michael Lawrence’s career “arc” has traced an intricate path, leading from teenage banjoist/folk singer, to writer, producer, director, and editor of more than 20 documentaries, one of which inspired the movie Quiz Show, with stops along the way as a classical guitar recitalist (performing live as well as on television and radio), a film composer of more than a dozen scores, and an author of many film and television treatments. He is a graduate of the first guitar class at the Peabody Conseratory, and therefore had close contact with two of his subjects, guitarist Manuel Barrueco and teacher Aaron Shearer. Both are renowned in the classical guitar world, and their life stories enliven these fine films.

Manuel Barrueco, a Gift and a Life, is an intimate introduction to the life and art of an outstanding virtuoso who has suffered from the political upheavals in his native Cuba, but who has triumphed over adversity to achieve his deserved success. Barrueco is revealed to be a shy, somewhat reserved and thoughtful man, who nonetheless has firm artistic convictions, and can express those ideals convincingly in performance. There are many excellent musical examples in the film, traversing a repertoire ranging from Bach to The Beatles, and including Lecuona, Scarlatti, Villa Lobos, Albeniz, Granados and Sierra, among others, as well as sincere tributes to Barrueco from his equally celebrated peers, Elliot Fisk, David Tanenbaum, David Russell, the Assad brothers, and Al Di Meola. Former EMI producer Simon Woods refers to “the art that conceals art” to describe Barrueco’s playing, and the other speakers essentially amplify this idea: Barrueco is a patrician, elegant exponent, technically superb, coloristically gifted, lyrical, self-effacing, but intensely musical and communicative. Barrueco’s playing throughout is beautiful and inspiring, as are his thoughts about music: “For me, music is about feelings...it’s about form, it’s about traveling to different countries, to different times...but I think most of all, for me, it’s just about what it’s like to be human, what it feels like to be human. To me, that’s what music is about.”

In addition to Barrueco’s performances, the playing of the Assad brothers, Al Di Meola and David Russell is a very enjoyable part of the film. In a charming vignette, five guitarists are shown relaxing and playing at Barrueco’s home. After some exciting guitar wizardry by the Assad brothers, and bits by Barrueco and Russell, the latter demonstrates his unusual ability to play the guitar with his nose and tongue, and the five guitarists play together on one instrument.(Who says classical musicians are stuffy?) The visit concludes with Sergio Assad playing a beautiful duet with Barrueco, “Farewell,” that compliments the sad story of Barrueco’s estrangement from Cuba that’s interspersed with the music.

Aaron Shearer was Manuel Barrueco’s teacher (Michael Lawrence was also one of his students), and in Shearer’s opinion, Barrueco is the greatest guitarist performing today (quite a compliment). Shearer has taught many guitarists who later became famous, and in David Tanenbaum’s words, “Ultimately, it may be who you produce after a lifetime of teaching that really defines what you’ve done. It may not be the method books you write, but the players that you create, and no one has created anywhere near the kind of players that Shearer has.” (Tanenbaum is a prolific recording artist and Chairman of the Guitar Department at The San Francisco Conservatory of Music.) To Julian Gray, (a guitarist and member of Peabody’s faculty), Shearer “changed the way that people thought about the guitar. It’s a very big accomplishment to change the discourse of an instrument, the way that he did.” Shearer apparently is a kind, but firm teacher, highly analytical, who even in retirement continues to probe the secrets of guitar technique. He’s dedicated much of his life to the guitar, from childhood on, and his students obviously thrived under his tutelege. He too, like Barrueco, had to overcome hardships, first poverty, and then musical isolation and the lack of properly systematized instruction to achieve his goal. A devasting remark by his idol, Segovia, regarding Shearer’s efforts to produce a comprehensive guitar method, would have crushed a less devoted seeker, but Shearer perservered, ultimately being vindicated by the great success of his instruction books. Aaron Shearer, A Life with the Guitar, like Manuel Barrueco, a Gift and a Life, presents many beautiful selections, some performed by Barrueco, and others by a collection of groups and soloists. I especially enjoyed Barrueco in Scarlatti (Sonatas in E, K.380 and B minor, K.27) and Nazareth (Odeon), and the Aurora Guitar Quartet’s polished playing of Morena-Torroba’s La Boda, Bizet’s Gypsy dance from Carmen, and Brouwer’s Cuban landscape with rain. La boda opens the program, and is enhanced by innovative camera work: I can’t recall seeing a more sophisticated visual adjunct to a musical performance.

Both documentaries offer revealing biographical portraits, and should please anyone who is curious about the lives and personalities of prominent musicians and teachers. Of course, both films should be required viewing for students and aficionados of the classical guitar. I have one complaint, perhaps not a fair one, which is that the music can only be heard in the context of the film. In other words, any voice overs will be repeated with the music during subsequent auditions. I say unfair, because Michael Lawrence countered this observation by explaining that he set out to make documentaries, not concert fiilms, and I can’t really criticize him for achieving his aim. I’m just expressing my wish to have had the performances available on a separate track.

The Mind of Music explores music's place in the universe and in the life of humanity. Musical luminaries Yehudi Menuhin, George Rochberg and Gunther Schuller air their views, and also discuss the compositional urge and process. Dr. Lewis Thomas and musicologist Eugene Helm add their thoughtful comments, and well played musical interludes speak witout words about music’s subtle power. A Bach prelude from one of his cello suites opens and closes the film, it’s sonorous majesty bestowing intimations of higher realms. In between, music by Brahms, Stravinsky, Faure, Salzedo, Mozart, Byrd, Pachelbel, and Victoria plays to refresh the ears and soothe the soul. Although I agree that music is miraculous, mysterious and inherently human (ideas vividly expressed in the film), I don’t think our enjoyment of music has to be overburdened with profound “meaning” to be valid, nor do I necessarily believe that we vibrate with the universe when we play or sing (although on some level, perhaps we do), but anyone who loves music should entertain such noble speculations, if only for the length of the film. I find The Mind of Music to be a very well constructed half hour, wise without being didactic or pompous, and a stimulant to thought.

Michael Lawrence has used his knowledge of music, and his skill as a film maker to give us three documentaries that will amply reward an interested viewer, and I look forward to whatever productions he may send my way.

--- Robert Schulslaper