In 1981 New York City, violinist
Roberta Guaspari has recently divorced her
U.S. Navy officer husband Charles Demetras, who has instead decided to pursue a romantic relationship with a friend of hers named Lana Holden. Encouraged by her mother Assunta to return to the workforce for the sake of her two sons Alexi and Nicholas, Guaspari attempts to rebuild her life and reconnects with a former classmate named Brian Turner while working as a gift-wrapper at a department store; recalling her childhood love for playing the violin, he arranges for her to be introduced to Janet Williams, the head teacher and principal of
East Harlem's Central Park East School. Despite having little experience in actual music teaching, she accepts a substitute violin teaching position at Central Park East, even supplying 50 child-size violins she purchased while living in Greece, where her husband was based. With a combination of her toughness and determination, she inspires a group of children, and their initially skeptical parents. The program slowly develops and attracts publicity, eventually expanding to Central Park East II and River East Schools. Ten years later, the Central Park East, Central Park East II and River East School string programs work with the
New York City Board of Education to help eliminate funding for the programs, which leads to Guaspari's early dismissal. Determined to fight the budget cuts, she enlists the support of former pupils, parents and teachers, and over the next two years, she plans a
benefit concert, Fiddlefest, to raise money so that the program can continue. However, a few weeks before the concert, and with all participants furiously rehearsing, they lose the venue. However,
Arnold Steinhardt, a violinist in the
Guarneri Quartet and the husband of a publicist friend, enlists the support of other well-known musicians, including
Isaac Stern and
Itzhak Perlman. They arrange for the concert to be mounted at
Carnegie Hall. On the day of Fiddlefest, Guaspari and her students perform with Perlman, Steinhardt, Stern,
Mark O'Connor,
Michael Tree, Charles Veal Jr.,
Karen Briggs, Sandra Park, Diane Monroe, and
Joshua Bell, increasing donations and making the event a massive success. The epilogue explains that following the events of the film, the $250,000 in proceeds from the concert supported Guaspari's program for three years, during which she and her supporters continued to fund her work through benefit concerts and donations to their private foundation, the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music; Community School District 4 assisted as permitted by its limited resources. Eventually, her violin program was officially reinstated during the production of the film. In addition, she still teaches in East Harlem, where she lives with her daughter Sophia, whom she adopted from El Salvador in 1991. Her eldest son Nicholas has become a professional cellist in a graduate music program, and her youngest son Alexi has been accepted to medical school. Opus 118, which hopes to expand its outreach to more children, remains dependent on the generosity of its donors. ==Cast==