Vijay Gupta is a violinist and social justice advocate providing musical enrichment and valuable human connection to the homeless, incarcerated, and other under-resourced communities in Los Angeles. After joining the Los Angeles Philharmonic as a young violinist, Gupta began to give lessons to Nathaniel Ayers, a Juilliard-trained musician whose mental illness led to homelessness. This experience motivated him to play for the homeless and mentally ill living on Skid Row, an area of concentrated poverty and homelessness in downtown Los Angeles and, eventually, to cofound the not-for-profit Street Symphony. Vijay Gupta received a B.S. (2005) from Marist College and an M.M. (2007) from Yale University. He joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2007, where he is currently the Mark Houston Dalzell and James Dao-Dalzell First Violin Chair. He has served as co-founder and artistic director of Street Symphony since 2011; he is also a faculty member of the Longy School of Music of the Bard College Masters of Arts in Teaching Program and the Colburn School. He has performed as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestras among others, and as a guest concertmaster with the LA Opera and London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. Gupta has also performed as a recitalist and chamber musician on an international scale since the age of eight.
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