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C-Ville Weekly | (Original Article) by Julia Stumbaugh - When Melodious Accord, Inc., reached out to Charlottesville-based documentarian Eduardo Montes-Bradley and asked him to craft a film about the life of musician and composer Alice Parker, Montes-Bradley knew he had to meet Parker before he said yes. He headed up to Boston, and the two drove together to Parker’s 17th-century New England cottage home, where Montes-Bradley pulled out his camera and asked her to describe her earliest memory. Parker told him of sitting on the floor by her mother as she played the piano. It sounded to Montes-Bradley like a picturesque description of an early 20th-century postcard. “There is something absolutely magical about this person,” Montes-Bradley says. “I felt that I was running into my own grandmother. I felt enveloped by wisdom and love…when I saw her through the lens, I thought, ‘this is it. This is the person. This is my next movie.’” The evening scene that Montes-Bradley shot in his very first meeting with his 95-year-old subject is cut throughout his latest film, Alice: At Home with Alice Parker, which will be shown at the festival beginning October 21. It’s the director’s latest in a long documentary career that took him from Buenos Aires to the University of Virginia’s Heritage Film Project. Pinning Alice together is the music. Normally, Montes-Bradley doesn’t share his work until it’s finished, but this time he collaborated with Parker for her expert advice on the film’s score. He uses Parker’s own voice and compositions for most of the soundtrack, with the exception of a haunting underscore that is voiced by her late husband, Tom Pyle. Pyle died in the ’70s, leaving Parker to raise five children alone. Around the time, Parker parted ways with her longtime mentor, conductor Robert Shaw. “I believe that Alice Parker becomes Alice Parker when she traumatically detaches herself from the shadow of these two amazing men,” Montes-Bradley says. “She becomes the fabulous woman she is in a time of change in the world, and in America, with regards to women’s rights.” The documentary was shot in February, meaning that Montes-Bradley pieced the work together in isolation. That unique process lends the film a warm kind of intimacy. Every shot of Parker’s gentle hands and gleaming eyes are proof of the connection Montes-Bradley found with her during this strange spring. “I think what saved me from going insane during this quarantine early period was precisely my relationship to this subject,” Montes-Bradley says. “In the basement of my house in Charlottesville when I started editing…I had my conversations. The rest of my conversations with her, most of them happened in quarantine, with me in the basement and Alice on the screen.” Parker is a prolific composer of everything from hymns to operas, and she set music to the words of everyone from Martin Luther King Jr. to Emily Dickinson. Alice reminds viewers that beyond the impact these works hold for the American choral scene, Parker is still a relatable human. “The time that I took to do this, and the possibility to go deeper into those connections, allowed me to understand where she was coming from and the importance of her work, the relevance of her work,” Montes-Bradley says. “She connects us through music to some of the literary works of the first half of the century.”

Back from the first leg of a cross-country journey in search of The Other Madisons. The Other Madisons is the title of the book by Bettye Kearse that inspired the documentary that we are aiming to complete by Christmas, for release in the first quarter of 2021. In just a few days we covered quite some beautiful territories in just about the right time of the year. On the first stretch we drove from Charlottesville, Virginia to East Bristol, Maine where Christian Cotz was waiting for us to talk about Mandy, Coreen and Jim, the first three generations of enslaved at James Madison’s Montpelier. Mandy had been purchased by the president’s father, at the Slave Market in Fredericksburg. Coreen her daughter, and Jim her grandchild, later sold to a plantation in the South. On the way back from Maine we stopped at Alice Parker’s refuge in the mountains of western Massachusetts to collect last minute footage before the release of her film by Chorus America which took place online on October 8thwith fabulous reception everywhere. That was a day to remember. Following the road back to Virginia we took some time to visit Pablo Tabernero, Jr. and Georganne Chapin in Woodstock. Over breakfast the following morning,Georganne show us a fabulous album with photos of Afro-Bolivians descendants she worked close with almost fifty years ago. A final stop at Eugenio Cuttics’ art studio near Montauk put an end to the first leg of the ambitious roadmap. The second leg in this cross-country journey starts on Friday with a visit to Kelley Fanto Deetz at Stratford Hall, birthplace of Robert E. Lee, fabulous location for our film. At dawn on Sunday we’ll be heading west to Saint Louis and ultimately New Mexico. If all goes well, we should be driving in Santa Fe by Wednesday October 21st where author Bettye Kearse, a true griotte and direct descendant from African slaves and an American President (James Madison) will be waiting to tell her story. I hope to be back home, in Virginia by the end of the month, on time for Halloween and my son’s birthday.

Sequence: Mandy’s Funeral at James Madison’s Montpelier The enslaved graveyard is strategically situated in a wooded area southeast of the main house of James and Dolly Madison. It was there that we believe were put to rest the ancestors of Bettye Kearse, author of The Other Madisons, griot memories of eight generations, starting with Mandy, the first African in her family to serve as property at Montpelier, household-plantation of the 4th president of the United States, and his father before him. In the documentary film, based on Ms. Kearse’s book, and currently in production, we are introducing for the sequence establishing the burial of Mandy Adowa tunes, music of the Ga people of Ghana which, as we currently understand, were the traditional roots of Mandy. The recordings use to score the aforementioned sequence, pertain to an exquisite recording by Folkways Records, New York 1978 recorded and annotated by Barbara L. Hampton. This recording is being now research for copyright clearance which we’re hoping will be granted for the purpose of giving credibility to the historical reconstruction. For more information about the actual album and recording, please visit album data.

In “ALICE: At Home with Alice Parker”, a documentary film by Montes-Bradley, the audience joins the filmmaker Montes-Bradley as he breaks the Fourth Wall leading into Alice’s kitchen, in her 17th-century cottage, once the town meeting hall in Hawley, a small village in the western mountains Massachusetts. And what the camera is about to reveal are previously unknown aspects of Alice’s relationships and collaborations with other American Artists resulting in a magnificent body of work with profound lyricism and devotion for the land, and humankind. One such collaboration evoked in the film is the one Alice reflects upon when thinking of Emily Dickinson. “Emily's and my situation are very similar in some ways and very different in others. We certainly were shaped by this climate.” Alice assures us, “We were shaped by this rogued countryside. The granite and the hills.” The intimacy of the dialogue between protagonist and filmmaker renders “ALICE” as a unique window into a vanishing universe with persistent truths and values.

In the process of making a film with Alice Parker in Massachusetts, we recorded scenes that would eventually not make it to the movie. These scenes, part of a larger picture, were recently collected and edited to share with you in anticipation of the upcoming worldwide of ALICE in October 8, an event organized in collaboration with Chorus America and Melodious Accord. Before then, we’ll share more sequences portraying Alice at home with filmmaker Eduardo Montes-Bradley. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and follow us on Facebook and Instagram for more memorable Outtakes. Thank you!

While on location at Alice's old family farm in Hawley, Massachusetts, we run into our good friends Beth Neville, and John Borden Evans. They were then attending a class by Alice Parker, the celebrated composer, conductor and teacher. That evening I turned the camera on. I wanted to know what brought them all the way up here from Charlottesville, Virginia. What you're about to see is part of a conversation between Beth Neville and John while trying to put together a puzzle at the end of another day in Hawley.

Tucumán, por Miguel Siso-Fernández En Buscando a Tabernero, Montes-Bradley triangula entre tres ciudades, Berlín, Barcelona y Buenos Aires una expedición tras la pista de un sujeto ya fallecido, un hombre misterioso, conmovedor y ejemplar, que se llevó consigo el secreto de ese misterio, ese mal necesario, ese boleto solo de ida que llamamos "exilio". ¿Qué nos pasa si la vida nos obliga a dejar el suelo patrio para siempre? Quizá que perdamos todo lo que nos defina, incluso el nombre. Es el caso de Tabernero, al que Montes-Bradley, a través de discípulos, cinéfilos, cineastas y su propio hijo (Henry Weinschenk), redibujará con gran nitidez a partir de meras manchas dispersas, casi residuales. Así, conoceremos a quien, huyendo de un verdugo implacable y multiforme, migró repetidas veces en pos de la supervivencia de su vocación y de su propia persona, para prestidigitarse una vida memorable.

FILM BASED ON a book by BETTYE KEARSE. For thousands of years, descendants of West African nations have passed on their sfamily stories from generation to generation. The tradition migrated and persisted in America through eslavement, emancipation, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Era and still it continues to shape a powerful legacy. Without this tradition Bettye Kearse would not have known that she is a descendant of James Madison, president of the United States, and Father of the Constitution. In her book The Other Madisons, author Bettye Kearse explores her family roots and the complex legacy of slavery and race. Now, her is being made into a documentary film by Eduardo Montes-Bradley, whose previous works include biographical portrayals of poet laureate Rita Dove, civil rights activist Julian Bond and President James Monroe. "I think "The Other Madison's" is a story that trascends the mere biographical experience by becoming an opportunity to explore the legacy of slavery while recognizing at the same time, generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society." Eduardo Montes-Bradley. Pricipal photography is expected to begin in mid-October 2020, and premier is currently being planend during the African American History Month (February 2021) in Boston and Washington, DC.

Charottesville - A few days back, I drove by Dry Bridge Rd. on my way to test a new batch of burbon in a near by destillery. On my way I decided to stop by and pay my respects to Jay Y. Guillenwater. The former subject of one of my most recent biographical documentaries is a well respected physician, emeritus profesor of medicine at the University of Virginia, and also a friend and a neightbour. Jay and I worked together on his documentary for almost a year. During my visit he asked to record his words using my iphone. And this is what he had to say.

Evolution of a Work-in-Progress. The artwork of your film should be an intrinsic part of your creative process. As a filmmaker, I can not remove myself from the design that will ultimately represent my work. Part of the revolution shaping the way in which we conceive and produce documentary films today is placing the filmmaker in a more compelling role as a developer, cinematographer, editor, sound designer, and yes, graphic guru. The New Documentarian is one of many hats, an artist that stretches his canvas as far as the imagination goes.