This film blew me away. Everyone needs to see this film to understand and appreciate the power of music.
Music and music therapy is real. Enjoy the music I put up for you guys and let me know how it makes you feel.
Young@Heart is an entertainment group created by and for the elderly, comprised at present of people at least 70 years of age. Some have prior professional theater or music experience, others have performed at amateur level, and some have no experience whatsoever.
Founded in 1982 in Northampton, Massachusetts the members all lived in an elderly housing project, The Walter Salvo House. The first group included elders who lived through both World Wars. One had fought in the Battle of the Somme as a 16 year old and another, Anna Main, a stand-up comic, lost her husband in the First World War. Main stayed with the group until she was 100 years old.
The group was filmed for a documentary film shown on Britain’s Channel 4 in 2007. A feature-length version of the documentary was released in April 2008 by Fox Searchlight Pictures.
The most touching aspect was the willingness to carry-on. The performance that made the movie excel was Fred Knettle doing Coldplays “Fix You”.
The group’s performance was led by former chorus member Fred Knittle, who suffers from congestive heart failure and breathes with assistance from an oxygen tank. The performance was originally planned to be a duet between Knittle and Bob Salvini, another former chorus member, but Salvini died shortly before the show. Knittle performed it as a solo, as a tribute to his friend.
The performance was initially recorded for a British documentary that aired on Channel 4; footage of the performance was uploaded to YouTube in November 2006 to positive response. An expanded version of the film, titled Young@Heart, debuted at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival and was released in United States theatres in 2008.
Here is the clip of Fred doing “Fix You”
