YO:  Was it gang issues, or what were they afraid of?

GLF:  Oh everything that you can imagine! All the fear that we have about people that are different, and musicians maybe have one other that non-musicians don’t and that is they feel classical music is not considered cool. They are used to people that know all the Beethoven symphonies, that can know when to clap and know the various protocols – it’s a very regimented discipline. They come out onstage, they take their bow, then the concertmaster comes out, he takes a bow. Then they tune.  Then, the music starts. But you go into a typical folkloric concert, a salsa concert – people are talking, they’re eating – they totally know what’s going on, but it’s just a different way of interacting. It’s very different, people expect to move and dance. It’s not this “holy” experience. Although, it is at one level, it just doesn’t look that way. I mean, you go to a black Baptist service and they’re moving, they’re responding. It’s dynamic, and they think you’re weird if you’re just sitting like that.

I knew from the beginning that people were gonna look at this project across the field – other orchestras – and the national league – they are very in touch with what other orchestras are doing and they’re always looking for the next big thing. They’re trying to find  new audiences. So I knew as soon as we stepped in that this was gonna go Vhooom!! And people were gonna be watching. So you have to be savvy at the same time that you’re not losing what it’s all about.  And so I talked with a lot of undocumented Latinos that were like shadows. Many of them were college students that were quietly admitted by some good soul in the admissions office. A lot of them were born here –don’t know Mexico, don’t know Guatemala. If you sent them back there, they would be a foreigner in their “country of citizenship.” So they really do feel like ghosts. There are laws that people are trying to pass to get them citizenship. These are the people we want to be Americans anyway. A lot of them became really good friends and when I’d talk about them I never referred to them by their whole names you know, I used their initials or whatever, to protect them.

The pressure was on for me to come up with something that honored them, that didn’t play to stereotypes -- stereotypes that I carried around too. I had to be very in touch with my own prejudices, my own fears as well. So I came up with something and that’s what the documentary is about. I thought the cameramen did a great, humane, beautiful job of presenting stuff right from the beginning. I was like “You know what, don’t tell the typical artist’s story -- of course I'm at the center of it, but keep getting footage of these people." So there is a lot of time on people that we met, and just letting them tell their stories.