April 11, 2017 – Robert Shaw - Man of Many Voices has picked up the Best Documentary award at the Palm Beach International Film Festival and selected one of the Best of the Fest by the American Documentary Festival (AmDocs).
In February, the Atlanta-produced film won the Gold Award from the Los Angeles Film Review’s 2017 Independent Film Awards as well as the Best Documentary award from the Beaufort International Film Festival.
Next stop: the Newport Beach International Film Festival (April 20 -27th).
The film, about the extraordinary life of the internationally revered choral and orchestral conductor, is the first film from executive producer, Kiki Wilson. Ms. Wilson sings alto with Shaw's celebrated Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus (ASOC) and was with the chorus through many of the Shaw years.
Robert Shaw is the icon of choral music. The 16-time Grammy winner entered the world of pop music with no formal training and yet was on national broadcasts by the age of 22. With even less training, he later decided to move into classical music where in spite of all odds he conducted some of the most remarkable music performed in the 20th century. The documentary includes interviews and commentaries from, amongst others, President Jimmy Carter, Walter Cronkite, Syvia McNair and Yo-Yo Ma.
View the trailer for the film at: https://vimeo.com/203206134
Robert Shaw’s impact went beyond the musical world and into civil rights arena as well. The film explores his forays into the South with racially integrated choruses as well as his reasoning for bringing his already impressive musical influence to Atlanta in the 1960s.
Director, Peter Miller, whose films, including AKA Doc Pomus, Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, and Sacco and Vanzetti, have screened in cinemas and on television throughout the world. He has also been a producer on numerous landmark PBS series directed by Ken Burns and has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy for A Gift of Love: The Daniel Huffman Story.
Emmy Award winning actor, David Hyde Pierce, narrates the film from Mr. Shaw’s modest beginnings through his improbable but meteoric rise to national stardom and international acclaim. The choral world’s fascination with Robert Shaw’s techniques are only slightly matched by the music world’s celebration of the sounds he was able to create. 16 Grammy Awards plus the first classical “Gold Album”, selling more than one million copies, attest to his 60-year career.