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The American violinist, music director and advocate for social justice, Robert Vijay Gupta, grew up in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York, near Poughkeepsie. His parents had immigrated from Bengal, India in the 1970's. At age 7 he enrolled in the pre-college program at the Juilliard School (1995-2002) and age 11 he performed solo for the first time with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. He toured internationally as a soloist and recitalist, performing across the USA, 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 (2002-2004), studying under the then concert-master of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Glenn Dicterow. At 17 he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Marist College, in biology (2005). He held neurobiology research internships at CUNY Hunter College and the Harvard Institutes of Medicine, studying spinal cord regeneration and the biochemical pathways of Parkinson's Disease. At Harvard, he met Gottfried Schlaug, a researcher and musician studying the impact of music on the brain of aphasic (stroke) patients. Gupta went on to earn an Master of Music degree in Violin Performance from the Yale School of Music (2005-2007), where he studied with Ani Kavafian. Shortly after graduating from Yale, he won his first orchestral audition and joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 2007, when he was 19 years old.
Vijay Gupta has performed as an international recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician for over 20 years. He was a member of the first violin section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra for 12 years, and has collaborated with the Kronos Quartet, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, Yo-Yo Ma, and appears regularly with the Strings Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Vijay Gupta became an advocate for the homeless of Los Angeles shortly after joining the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. He joined a group of LA Phil musicians close to Nathaniel Ayers a Juilliard-trained double-bassist whose mental illness left him homeless. He 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."
Vijay Gupta is a violinist, speaker and citizen-artist dedicated to creating spaces of wholeness through music. Vijay’s work embodies his belief that the work of artists and citizens is one: to make a sadhana - a daily practice - of the world we envision. He leads a protean career as a thought leader, performer, collaborator and communicator. In 2010 he 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, prisons, shelters and transitional facilities and has presented over 1,500 musical performances and workshops, spanning genres of music ranging from classical, choral, jazz, mariachi, reggae and West-African drumming. Every December, the group performs George Frideric Handel's Messiah, with musicians from skid row joining with professional musicians to perform. The organization's performances have been highlighted by the LA Times and The New Yorker magazine amongst the most prominent and notable performances in the country. Gupta is also a co-founder of the Skid Row Arts Alliance, a consortium dedicated to creating art for - and with - the largest homeless community in America. For his work in “bringing beauty, respite, and purpose to those all too often ignored by society”, he was the recipient of a 2018 MacArthur Fellowship.
In a 2017 column for the New Yorker, music critic Alex Ross wrote of Vijay Gupta, “a visionary violinist...[and] one of the most radical thinkers in the unradical world of American classical music. With Street Symphony, he has created a formidable new model for how musical institutions should engage with the world around them.” Ross calls Gupta “a riveting speaker, at once jovial and intense. He talks rapidly, precisely, and with startling candor.” In 2012 Gupta presented a "TED Talk" entitled "Between Music and Medicine" which has received millions of views. He was featured in TIME 100 NEXT in 2019.
A riveting speaker, Vijay Gupta has shared his work with dozens of corporations, campuses, conferences and communities across America over the past 10 years, including The Richmond Forum, The Aspen Institute, Hallmark, Accenture, Mayo Clinic, US Psychiatric Congress, American Planning Association, and the League of American Orchestras, just to name a few. He delivered the 33rd annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy for Americans for the Arts and his 2010 TED Talk, “Music is Medicine, Music is Sanity”, has garnered millions of views. He currently serves as the Senior Artistic and Programs Advisor for Young Musicians Foundation.
A dynamic recording artist, Vijay Gupta recently released Breathe, an album of the piano chamber music of Reena Esmail, under his own label. His solo violin album When the Violin, a solo violin album featuring the music of Esmail, J.S. Bach, and Esa-Pekka Salonen was released under his own label on Bandcamp in June 2021. He plays a 2010 violin made by Los Angeles-based luthier Eric Benning, He currently lives in Pasadena, California. |
