Don Johnson Music Industry Service Award
Examples of life imitating art abound. Rarer still are those occasions when a piece of art inspires real-world actions that literally change lives. But that’s what occurred in 1996, when Michael Kamen undertook a press tour with actor Richard Dreyfuss and director Stephen Herek to promote the film Kamen had just scored, Mr. Holland’s Opus, about a high-school music teacher whose efforts help nurture a generation of aspiring young musicians. On a stop at his alma mater, New York’s LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Kamen noticed a cage full of broken musical instruments the school didn’t have the funds to repair. He decided, on the spot, to start the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, dedicated to providing students of the nation’s neediest schools with instruments.
