Vijay Gupta

Vijay Gupta is a violinist, curator, and music director who explores the human condition through music. His performing career has taken him from Carnegie Hall — where he debuted at age eight — to county jails, Skid Row shelters, and state psychiatric hospitals, finding in each the same essential questions about what music is for, and who it is for. At eleven, he made his international solo debut with the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. At nineteen, he became the youngest violinist ever to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he performed for eleven seasons. The Los Angeles Times has called his playing ​“brilliant, bold and gripping,” and Publishers Weekly praised his memoir Restrung as a ​“a virtuoso performance” that illustrates how music ​“reaches the broken places within us and the broken places between us.”

A recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and honoree on the Time 100 Next list, Gupta is the founder and artistic director of Street Symphony, a nonprofit that brings live music into shelters, clinics, county jails, state hospitals, and reentry programs across Los Angeles. Over fifteen years, Street Symphony has delivered more than 3,000 performances and workshops. The New Yorker called it ​“a formidable new model for how musical institutions should engage with the world around them.” 

In addition to his work with Street Symphony, Gupta performs as a soloist and as a founding member of the Darshan Piano Trio. He holds degrees in biology and violin performance and completed graduate study at the Yale School of Music. He has addressed audiences at the Aspen Institute, Mayo Clinic, Harvard Business School, the American Medical Association, and the U.S. Psychiatric Congress, among others. Restrung, his memoir, was published by Grand Central / Da Capo in 2026. 

Presented in partnership with the U‑M Arts Initiative, the Michigan Arts Festival, and the Ann Arbor Symphony.

Series presenting partners: Detroit PBS, ALL ARTS, and PBS Books. Media partner: Michigan Public.