David Hinshaw

David Hinshaw passed away on Jan. 22, 2023 shortly after listening to Adagio for Strings, op. 11, holding on just long enough to ensure his beloved Springer Spaniel Phydeaux had been taken for a walk.

After 75 years, his end came peacefully.

He is survived by his children Kate (partner: Spencer) and Drew (Celeste), his former wife and friend Joan, his brother Edward, and his two grandchildren, Jasper and Jonah, whose cards and letters he collected in a small box on his dresser.

David was born in 1947 to Lewis and Blanche Hinshaw of Greensboro, NC. He graduated from Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music with a bachelor's and master's degree in music composition. In 1968, he was elected national vice president of the U.S. Student's Association, and for years he told the story of meeting President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who quizzed David on what motivated young people to protest the Vietnam War.

After university, he studied in Switzerland then moved to New York City to work in music publishing, which gave him the opportunity to write scores for Leonard Bernstein. He moved to Georgia, where he worked closely with Robert Shaw at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, before embarking on a career as an award-winning filmmaker and videographer-for-hire.

From behind the camera, he had a firsthand lens-view of history, by filming interviews with icons of the 20th Century such as: James Brown, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jane Goodall, John Lewis, Dolly Parton, Ted Turner, Jermaine Dupri, Monica Lewinsky, Ludacris, the 14th Dalai Lama, and many more. He worked frequently with Jimmy Carter, and often recalled helping the former president chase squirrels out of his attic.

The joy of meeting the famous paled in comparison to the meaning he found in freely giving his talents to the causes he believed in. His favorite videos were stories about people and the past, from the antiquities of Greece to capturing church history through the eyes of parishioners at St. Lukes Episcopal Church, his spiritual home for many decades. He loved mythology and the arts. Even at 75, his hands trembling from Parkinson's, he spent his days behind a camera and at an editing suite, trying to complete his latest documentary, while listening to an audio history of the 14th century and dedicating hours on the phone to catching up with his many lifelong friends.

He is preceded in death by his brother Bill Hinshaw. The family is incredibly appreciative of his numerous friends, caretakers, and companions especially Cotten Alsten, Bill Ivey, Mark and Patt Heflin, Neil Shorthouse and Patty Pflum, Ed Hinshaw, Amanda Oden, and many others -and especially to St. Luke's.

His family invites his loved ones to donate to St. Luke's at https://www.stlukesatlanta.org/give/ or to Communities In Schools, at https://www.cisatlanta.org/ in lieu of flowers.

His life will be celebrated at 2 p.m., Thursday February 2, at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 435 Peachtree St NE.