Roberta guaspari demetras biography

Roberta Guaspari (born September 15, 1947) is an American violinist and music educator.
A dramatization of the true story of Roberta Guaspari, portrayed by Meryl Streep, who co-founded the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music and fought for music.
Roberta Guaspari invests in the future by giving kids the gift of music, the feeling of success, and the confidence that they are more than capable of reaching.

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Roberta Guaspari

American violinist and music educator (born 1947)

Roberta Guaspari
Born	(1947-09-15) September 15, 1947 (age 77) Rome, New York, U.S.
Occupations	Music Teacher

Musical artist

Roberta Guaspari (born September 15, 1947) is an American violinist and music educator. She is known for her work in Harlem, New York, where she taught during the 1980s and 1990s to keep music alive in inner-city schools. She was portrayed on film by Meryl Streep in Music of the Heart (1999), written by Pamela Gray for which Streep was nominated for an Academy Award as Guaspari. Guaspari was also the subject of the 1995 documentary Small Wonders. As of 2017, she is still an instructor of violin with Opus 118 in New York City.^[1]

Life and career

Guaspari was born in Rome, New York, the daughter of Assunta "Sue" (née Vitali 1923–2013) and Guido "Guy" Guaspari (1917–1974). She has a sister, Lois, and two brothers, Alfred and Douglas. Her grandparents on both sides were from Italy.^[2] She graduated with a B.A. in music education from

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Music of the Heart

1999 film by Wes Craven

Music of the Heart is a 1999 American biographicalmusicaldrama film directed by Wes Craven and written by Pamela Gray, based on the 1995 documentary Small Wonders. A dramatization of the true story of Roberta Guaspari, portrayed by Meryl Streep, who co-founded the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music and fought for music education funding in New York City public schools, the film also stars Aidan Quinn, Angela Bassett, Gloria Estefan in her film debut, Jane Leeves, Kieran Culkin and Jay O. Sanders. It was Craven's sole mainstream cinematic film not in the horror or thriller genre, and also his only film to receive Oscar nominations.

Plot

In 1981 New York City, violinist Roberta Guaspari has recently divorced her U.S. Navy officer husband Charles Demetras, who has instead decided to pursue a romantic relationship with a friend of hers named Lana Holden. Encouraged by her mother Assunta to return to the workforce for the sake of her two sons Alexi and Nicholas, Guaspari attempts to rebuild her life and reconnects with a form

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Filmmaking #7 - ROBERTA TZAVARAS and the East Harlem Violin Program

On May 9, 1991, Itzhak Perlman saw a report on the 11 o'clock news that arts instruction in the New York public schools was being cut city-wide. The broadcast included a short piece about an elementary-school violin program run by Roberta Tzavaras, a teacher in one of the schools. Shown playing along with a class of about twenty students, Roberta scolded the kids and yelled at them by name, but she was unfailingly encouraging: “Jonathan, you're flat. More bow, Jose, more bow – watch Melissa. That's it!”

The fifth- and sixth-graders in Roberta's class were playing at a level beyond anything Perlman would have thought possible. When Roberta spoke to the camera, eloquently defending the value of teaching music in the schools, Perlman was hooked. He decided he had to help.

Somehow he found Roberta's' phone number and the next day he called her. “Hello, Roberta Tzavaras? This is Itzhak Perlman.” “Sure it is,” she answered, and started to hang up. But something about that deep voice made her hesitate.&