music.wikisort.org - Musician

Robert Vijay Gupta (born 1987) is a violinist, and advocate for social justice.[1] He is a 2018 recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Grant.[2][3]

Early life

(Robert) Vijay Gupta was born in 1987 and grew up in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York, near Poughkeepsie. His parents had immigrated from Bengal, India in the 1970s. At age 7 Gupta enrolled in the pre-college program at the Juilliard School and age 11 he performed solo for the first time with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He toured internationally as a soloist and recitalist, performing across the United States, India, Europe and Japan. He enrolled in undergraduate studies at Mount Saint Mary College in New York at age 13, initiating coursework towards a degree in pre-medical biology. At 15, he started a 2nd undergraduate degree in violin performance at the Manhattan School of Music, studying under the then concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, Glenn Dicterow. At 17 he earned a BA from Marist College, in biology. He earned an M.M. in 2007 from Yale University.[4] Gupta held neurobiology research internships at CUNY Hunter College and Harvard, in a medical lab. He won his first orchestral audition and joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2007, when he was 19 years old.[2]

Gupta became an advocate for the homeless shortly after joining the LA Philharmonic. Gupta joined a group of LA Phil musicians close to Nathaniel Ayers a Juilliard-trained double-bassist whose mental illness left him homeless. Gupta met Ayers through Steve Lopez, the Los Angeles Times columnist who did a series on Ayers, which became a book and movie called "The Soloist."[4][5]

In 2010 Gupta founded ”Street Symphony”, a non-profit organization providing musical engagement, dialogue and teaching artistry for homeless and incarcerated communities in Los Angeles. The organization performs at jails, shelters and transitional facilities and has presented over 1000 musical performances and workshops, spanning genres of music ranging from classical, choral, jazz, mariachi, reggae and West-African drumming. Every December, the group performs Handel's "Messiah," with musicians from skid row joining with professional musicians to perform.[2] In 2012 Gupta presented a "TED Talk" entitled "Between Music and Medicine."[6] In 2017 Gupta was given the "Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award for the Elevation of Music in Society."[1] Gupta was the keynote speaker at the 2019 National Planning Conference in San Francisco.[7]

References

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