INTERVIEW: ‘Hearing Is Believing’ charts rise of young musical prodigy
Hearing Is Believing, the new documentary from director Lorenzo Destefano, charts the musical passion of Rachel Flowers, a young prodigy who was born 15 weeks premature and lost her eyesight due to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). She has been in love with music since a young age and has turned that passion into a blossoming career that includes collaborations with the likes of Arturo Sandoval, Stevie Wonder and Dweezil Zappa.
The film recently opened in movie theaters and is now available on VOD and digital HD.
“I went to a local club in Ventura, [California], having heard that Rachel was going to be there,” Destefano said in a recent phone interview. “I had never heard of her, and it was a revelation. I met her mom, Jeanie, there, and I made some music films before, hadn’t thought of doing another one at that time. But we live very close to each other, and gradually, rather quickly it became clear we had to start something and see where it went. So we began filming about two months later and filmed for almost two years. This deceptively simple story — a family, and a town and a house — got bigger as we explored it, and hopefully the film reflects that, that it’s worth looking into the shadows a little bit, see what lives there.”
Destefano said Flowers and her family were patient with the cameras being around for so many hours. They were not looking for fame, he said. Although, truth be told, Flowers has become quite successful in her own right. She began her musical education at the age of 4 and continued her studies for years. Today, she is a recipient of a Stanford University Jazz Residency and Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Award. Flowers also receives private instruction in advanced improvisation through the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz.
“When I heard Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto in B minor and the one in D minor, at that time I was like I’d like to be a classical pianist and play Rachmaninoff concertos,” Flowers said of her earliest memories of musical appreciation. “I was probably 8 at the time, and then when I was in my early teens, I started exploring a lot of jazz. And then I wanted to be a jazz pianist after that, and then it was progressive rock. Then it just started building, growing.”
Flowers constantly listens to the radio, and some of her early memories are of hearing hip hop singers like Lauryn Hill and LL Cool J. Sting’s album Ten Summoner’s Tales was also an early influence.
She remembers playing “Moonlight Sonata” at a young age, but a problem soon emerged. “I was so small, I couldn’t play the notes,” she said. “I could play them, but I couldn’t reach them. My hands were so small. Now, of course, I could do it.”
Destefano’s mission was to take Flowers’ story and make it entertaining and engaging for a cinematic audience. Along those lines, he includes footage of Flowers playing music with the likes of Dweezil Zappa and Sandoval. “Arturo had played with Rachel in 2011 at the Ventura Music Festival,” Destefano said. “She won the student jazz competition that year, and one of the gifts was to play with the headliner, which was Arturo. … So we asked him if he’d do a reunion scene with us, and he said, ‘Yes.'”
The Dweezil Zappa connection was also a dream for Flowers, who has been a fan of Dweezil’s father, Frank Zappa, for quite some time.
“I do a whole bunch of Frank Zappa tunes on SoundCloud,” Flowers said. “It was difficult to find a good Frank Zappa song to play because his lyrics are very interesting and maybe not really for everybody, but the music part of it was cool. So it was tough to find something that would be neat, so once I started exploring the stuff that had the coolest music in it and some fun vocals — around the time when he had George Duke in the band and Ruth Underwood doing percussion and all that. So I did some Frank Zappa tunes that I really liked, and we had heard that Dweezil had checked them out. And I had this dream that I was playing with Dweezil on stage, and then it actually happened later on. I got to sit in and play in his band. It was fun playing with him, doubling on guitar, improvising together.”
Not only did Flowers achieve her dream of sitting in with Dweezil Zappa, but he’s also planning to write the liner notes for the soundtrack to Hearing Is Believing. “These things evolve over time in a wonderful way,” Destefano said.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Hearing Is Believing is now available on VOD and digitial HD, and playing in select theaters. Click here for more information.
