Music of the Heart

Book excerpt: Arriving in East Harlem, New York City h 1980 with her two young sons, soon after a painful divorce, Roberta Guaspari doesn't know what she will do to support her family and move forward with her life. All she does know is that she has managed to hold on to the 50 violins she bought with her family's savings as part of her dream to be a music teacher. But as the future will prove, these 50 violins, along with Guaspari's unrelenting passion for music and teaching, are the basis for what will become her triumphantly successful program to teach the children of her community the power of music and put hundreds of them on the pith toward personal success. In The Music of My Heart, Roberta Guaspari tells the story of how her ultimate success and that of the children she taught does not come without years of hard work to overcome personal and community adversity. In 1993, Guaspari and her students hold a concert at Carnegie Hall and are accompanied by the world famous violinists Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern. East Harlem is only three miles form Carnegie Hall, but the work required to make this journey takes years. In The Music of My Heart, Guaspari takes the reader back to relive her own personal journey, how it becomes entwined with the lives of many of her students, and how together they fight for a future full of hope end music.