The Conversation: How 'Green Book' composer Kris Bowers taught piano to Mahershala Ali and honors Don Shirley
The homework that film composer and music mentor Kris Bowers had to do before taking on his latest assignment speaks volumes about the unique niche in contemporary American music that pianist Don Shirley carved out for himself more than a half-century ago.
That legacy is at the heart of "Green Book," the widely lauded film based on Shirley's remarkable life and music, starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen. Already the Peter Farrelly-directed film has collected five Golden Globe nominations, including best picture.
Shirley, who trained as a classical musician, was the first African American accepted into the Leningrad Conservatory of Music in the former Soviet Union. But he was more or less forced to abandon his dream to perform the classical music he most loved and instead find a career in jazz and pop music because his record company persuaded him that audiences would not accept
