Violinist of L.A.’s Skid Row wins ‘genius’ grant
Walt Disney Concert Hall, a $274 million fortress of swirling, stainless steel designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry, is just a little more than a mile from Los Angeles’ Skid Row. But for the thousands of homeless people who move in and out of the missions and shelters or sleep in tents on the trash-strewn streets, it might as well be on the moon.
Vijay Gupta had made it his mission to bridge that gap. The 31-year-old violinist makes a living performing for affluent concertgoers at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The rest of the time, he’s at Skid Row or county jails, playing for an audience that may never set foot inside Disney Hall. Described as “one of the most radical thinkers in the unradical world of American classical music” by the New Yorker and “the most interesting man in the Phil” by Los Angeles Downtown News, his goal is to bring art and beauty to some of the city’s ugliest places.
On Thursday, Gupta’s eightyear experiment with taking classical music out the highbrow world of concert halls and into the streets received national recognition when he was named one of the 25 winners of the 2018 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowships. The “genius” grant, as it’s more commonly known, comes with a $625,000 prize that recipients can use in any way that they choose.
When he joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2007 at age 19, Gupta was hailed as a prodigy. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, who profiled Gupta for the paper, noted that the precocious violinist needed his dad to co-sign a condo loan because he had no credit history.
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 studied at Juilliard before schizophrenia left him homeless, Ayers had inspired Lopez’s book “The Soloist,” which later became a movie.
Gupta hasn’t yet said how he plans to use the “genius” grant money, and told the L.A. Times that getting the call from the MacArthur Foundation came as a total shock.
“I think I shouted expletives at the committee for the first minute of the phone call,” he said, “because I was in utter disbelief. It was the wildest, possible dream.”