RESTRUNG

A powerful chronicle of a member of the LA Philharmonic and MacArthur Fellow who finds forgiveness, connection, and family while first performing for then playing with people in Skid Row, mental hospitals, and LA County Jails.

Vijay Gupta is hailed by The New Yorker as a "visionary violinist...one of the most radical thinkers in the unradical world of American classical music." But Vijay didn't realize he needed saving. This would come unexpectedly when a member of an audience on LA's Skid Row looked at him and asked "what's eating at you, baby?"

Juilliard-trained, a violinist in the first section at the LA Philharmonic, Gupta was a decorated international performer in the competitive world of classical music. But in reality he was falling apart. When Gupta began performing on Skid Row he didn't know what he meant to accomplish at first, but the experiences fulfilled a deep need to connect. He founded Street Symphony, a non-profit dedicated to creating and sharing music in places filled with suffering. The music became a lifeline for the audiences, his colleagues, and himself. But his work with Street Symphony precipitated a crisis. What's eating at you, baby?

The son of hard-charging immigrant tiger parents from Bengal, Vijay had worked tirelessly to satisfy their expectations. He loved music. But his aptitude for practice and performance was directly tied to their love and approval, especially his father's. His father had special hand signals he would use to communicate with Vijay while he performed (one gesture meant "play from the heart") and the more Vijay succeeded the more approval he received. And the more he succeeded the greater were their expectations of him. In spite of exceeding those very expectations by becoming the youngest violinist ever hired by the LA Philharmonic, his parents expressed only disappointment at his choices. And they regularly reminded him how much weight he'd gained. Street Symphony? Madness. And when Vijay fell in love with a white woman his parents dubbed her "the creature," and disowned him, precipitating a tragic rupture.

Vijay served as a member of the first violin section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 12 years under Esa-Pekka Salonen and Gustavo Dudamel, and has collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, and Yo-Yo Ma, among many others. Gupta is a MacArthur Fellow, has also won 2017 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellowship, a 2010-2013 TED Senior Fellowship, the Leonard Bernstein Lifetime Achievement Award, and an honorary doctorate from the University of La Verne. In 2019, he was named one of TIME Magazine's "Next 100." He has appeared on NPR, TIME Magazine, The New Yorker, Dateline NBC, PBS NewsHour, 60 Minutes, and others. His 3 TED Talks have garnered over 5 million views and he has 30,000 followers over various social media platforms.