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August Rush is a movie about how musicians communicate through music. Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) lives in an orphanage, all the while believing that his parents are alive. He believes the music that he hears all around him is his parents communicating with him. Evan meets a counselor, Richard Jeffries (Terrence Howard), who gives a card with his number to him, introducing himself as a New York child service department member. Evan tells him he does not want to be adopted because he believes his parents are still alive.
Through a series of flashbacks, we learn that his parents were a famous concert cellist named Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell), and Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an Irish guitarist and lead singer from a rock band. They met, fell in love and spent the night in each others arms. Late in her pregnancy, Lyla was hit by a car crossing the street. Once she had delivered the baby and was told by her father (William Sadler) that her child didn't survive. Lyla and Louis both had trouble concentrating on playing music and were miserable without each other.
During one night, Evan hears what he considers "the ultimate call." He follows the sound until he falls asleep by the side of the road. Evan is picked up by a trucker, is taken to New York, and the trucker calls the number on the card that Evan had with him. Evan is told to stay in a certain spot but after the wind blows the card into a vent. While chasing the card he gets caught up with the "music of the city". He wanders around the city and finds a boy named Arthur (Leon G. Thomas III) playing the guitar. Attracted to the music, he follows Arthur and falls in with a group of street kids, all musicians of some kind, who are being cared for by "Wizard" (Robin Williams). Wizard is a busker who sees the children as "investments". Evan gets access to a guitar and begins to play music for the first time. He turns out to be a child prodigy, and Wizard gives him the name August Rush, both as an alias and a stage name, from a slogan on a random truck driving by.
Lyla's father confesses to her on his deathbed that her son lived after all and that he forged her signature on the papers giving the child up to the state. Lyla goes to New York City in search of her son. Meanwhile, Evan's father Louis has also begun to play again, and while trying to trace Lyla, has also ended up back in New York City, where they had originally met.
Meanwhile, Jeffries is looking for Evan. He becomes suspicious of Wizard and has the police follow him. They raid the condemned theater in which Wizard and the kids live. Having run away, Evan hears a choir singing in a church and meets a little girl named Hope (Jamia Simone Nash) who sings in the choir. She teaches him briefly how to read music and he begins to compose music while she is away at school. Hope returns home to discover music compositions covering her wall. She runs to Reverend James, the pastor of her church, and tells him a prodigy was sleeping under her bed. They run into the chapel and discover August at the organ, playing, like Mozart, with consumate skill. Reverend James (Mykelti Williamson) enrolls August into Juilliard School of Music, where he does brilliantly, eventually writing a magnificent piece called "August's Rhapsody", which is performed in the open on the Great Lawn and Turtle Pond of New York City's Central Park with the New York Philharmonic. By coincidence, Lyla Novacek, who has been repeatedly nudged by her friend to play with the philharmonic, agrees to do so.
But Wizard wants to make money from Evan, and having found him again through the concert advertisements, he forces Evan to leave Juilliard and the organizers of the concert by implying that he will tell everyone Evan's real name if he doesn't, in which case Evan will be sent back to the orphanage. Evan reluctantly goes with him. While busking under Wizard's supervision, Evan meets a fellow guitarist, who is, unbeknownst to both of them, his father. Evan, who uses his name August Rush, says that he has a big concert coming up, but that he can't go. Louis tells him that if he had a big concert, he wouldn't miss it for anything. Evan decides that he must go to the concert. But first, he has to get away from Wizard. Aided by Arthur, Evan escapes from Wizard to perform his concert in Central Park. As Evan is conducting the orchestra, Louis, notices a sign promoting the concert with the names Lyla Novacek and August Rush. After seeing it he makes his way to Central Park, reuniting with Lyla, who has returned hearing the beautiful music, in time to hear the conclusion of Evan's rhapsody with her. As the piece ends, Evan turns to see Lyla and Louis standing hand in hand. A final moment is shared as Lyla recognizes her son, Louis recognizes the child prodigy he guided in the park, and Evan recognizes them both as his parents.