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Walt Disney Concert Hall, a $ 274 million stainless steel fortress designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, is just over a mile from Skid Row in Los Angeles. But for the thousands of homeless people who come in and out of missions and shelters or sleep in tents in the streets full of rubbish, it might as well be on the moon.
Vijay Gupta was given a mission to bridge this gap. The 31-year-old violinist makes his living performing in front of a wealthy audience at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The rest of the time he is in county jails or Skid Row, playing in front of an audience that can never set foot in Disney Hall. Described as "one of the most radical thinkers of the radical world of American classical music" by the New Yorker and "the most interesting man of Phil" by Los Angeles Downtown News, his goal is to # 39; bring art and beauty to some of the ugliest places in the city.
Thursday, Gupta's eight years of experience in bringing classical music out of the world of concert halls and in the streets received national recognition when he was named one of the 25 winners of the 2018 scholarships awarded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The "great" grant, as it is more commonly known, includes a $ 625,000 prize that recipients can use as they see fit. In its announcement, the foundation has recognized Gupta "to bring beauty, respite and purpose to people too often ignored by society" and "demonstrating the ability of music to validate our common humanity", while at the same time attracting Pay attention to the social problems manifested in a place like Skid Row.
[MacArthur ‘genius’ grant winners ponder a new future: ‘Your life can change in an instant.’]
Born in 1987, Robert Vijay Gupta grew up an hour and a half north of New York. His parents, who immigrated from India in the 1970s, had high expectations for their two sons. Gupta was only 7 when he started the pre-university program at the Juilliard School and at eleven, when he made his solo debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, marking the beginning of his international career. At age 17, he obtained his undergraduate degree in Biology from Marist College.
"My father was undocumented when he came here" Gupta told "NBC Dateline" this summer. "He worked in kitchens all over New York, at JFK's baggage claim. And so I think the motivation comes from what they have again meaning in the world, because their two children had talent. "
The pressure to meet these expectations could be painful. "My brother and I spent a lot of time crying while playing our instruments, "Gupta told Dateline.
After completing his studies, Gupta had to decide whether he would pursue a career in music or medicine, he recalled during a TED conference in 2012. During his internship in a medical laboratory at Harvard, he began a conversation with Gottfried Schlaug, a renowned neuroscientist who studies the effects of music on the brain. Schlaug had faced a similar choice years ago, when he had given up a promising career as an organist. He told Gupta that the medical school could wait, but not the violin.
With this encouragement, Gupta joked, "I decided to shoot for the impossible before taking the MCAT and enrolling me in the medical school as a good Indian son to become the next Dr. Gupta. "
When he joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2007 at the age of 19, Gupta was hailed as a prodigy. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, who profiled Gupta for the newspaper, said the early violinist needed his father to co-sign a condo loan because he did not have any money. credit history and driving him into town because he was too young to rent a car.
In a move that would change the trajectory of Gupta's life, Lopez later introduced him to another Los Angeles-based musician: Nathaniel Ayers. A bassist who had studied at Juilliard before schizophrenia left him homeless, Ayers had inspired Lopez's book "The Soloist," which later became a film starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr.
Gupta began to teach Ayers to play the violin. "I found myself increasingly outraged by the fact that someone like Nathaniel could have been a homeless person on Skid Row because of his mental illness," he said. he recalled in his TED Talk 2012. "YAnd how many tens of thousands of other people on Skid Row had stories as tragic as his, but would never make a book or movie about them that would have made them out of the street?
The question motivated Gupta to return to Skid Row with her violin and play music for the homeless and the mentally ill who live there. In 2010, he co-founded Street Symphony, which performs in prisons, shelters, hospices and transitional housing. Every December, they hold a performance of Handel's Messiah, featuring professional musicians and Skid Row personalities. They also offer intensive music lessons to a group of scholars, many of whom are current and former residents of Skid Row.
"The idea of bringing beauty to this desolate and dehumanized place has become a calling," Gupta explained in an interview with The Independent in 2014.
[‘Closest person we have to Martin Luther King Jr.’: Pastor-activist William J. Barber wins $625,000 ‘genius’ grant]
Gupta was outspoken during interviews over dark periods of his own life, characterizing his parents' form of discipline as "emotional manipulation" and recalling the isolation he felt as a teenager of 14 years. years enrolled in university courses. He cut ties with his parents, who disavowed him when he married psychologist and activist Samantha Lynne for their objections, he told the New Yorker this year.
"I was lucky enough to have great people around me who supported me," he said. "But I think the very dark places in my life could have disappeared, especially with depression."
These experiences helped him get in touch with the people he met on Skid Row. "I see my pain in them and I know that they also see it in me," he said in an interview with "Dateline". "I'm incredibly privileged, I have to go to Juilliard, I play in L.A. Phil, and there is a part of me that knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that this dark place."
Gupta has not yet announced its intention to use the "great" grant. He told L.A. Times that receiving the MacArthur Foundation's call as he entered the Disney Hall parking lot was a total shock.
"I think I shouted at the committee during the first minute of the phone call," he said, "because I was completely incredulous. It was the craziest dream and possible. "
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