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Restrung Live - Vijay Gupta
Genres:
Classical Music, Theater
Runtime:
60 Minutes
No intermission
Tickets Start at:
$30
Expect a story told with a violin in hand, part concert and part confession.
Violinist Vijay Gupta had a seat in the Los Angeles Philharmonic, then walked away from that life. Restrung Live is his one-man show about why, and about what he found in Skid Row, the LA County jail, and a locked psychiatric ward, where a patient listened to him play Bach in silence and then asked: "Do you see me?" He tells the story in his own words and plays solo violin along the way, so the music becomes part of the telling.
It's an hour about what music can do for people who rarely get to hear it live. Bring someone who has ever wondered whether they're on the right path.
Members enjoy unlimited access all year.
As little as $25/month per person.
About the Show
A prodigy trained to perform for everyone learned, in the last place he expected, what it means to simply be in tune.
RESTRUNG is a one-man show written and performed by violinist Vijay Gupta, a 60-minute work of theater in which he plays live and speaks, inhabiting the full arc of his life story on stage. Born to Bengali immigrant parents in upstate New York, Gupta became the youngest musician ever to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic at nineteen. For more than a decade he performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl under Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Zubin Mehta, until, at the height of his career, he walked away. The show is the story of what drove him out, and what he found on the other side.
What he found was Skid Row. And the LA County jail. And a locked psychiatric ward, where a patient listened to Gupta play the Bach Chaconne in silence and then asked: Do you see me? That question (simple, devastating, unanswerable in the way that only the most essential questions are) is the hinge on which RESTRUNG turns. Through the founding of Street Symphony, his nonprofit bringing chamber music into the places most people never go, Gupta discovered that music is not decoration but medicine; not entertainment but survival. The show moves between these worlds (the concert hall and the shelter, the prodigy's triumph and the artist's collapse) with live violin threading through every scene.
Credits
Written and performed by Vijay Gupta
Directed by Valerie Bischoff
Produced by Steve Goldbloom in association with Vijay Gupta
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About the Show
A prodigy trained to perform for everyone learned, in the last place he expected, what it means to simply be in tune.
RESTRUNG is a one-man show written and performed by violinist Vijay Gupta, a 60-minute work of theater in which he plays live and speaks, inhabiting the full arc of his life story on stage. Born to Bengali immigrant parents in upstate New York, Gupta became the youngest musician ever to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic at nineteen. For more than a decade he performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl under Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Zubin Mehta, until, at the height of his career, he walked away. The show is the story of what drove him out, and what he found on the other side.
What he found was Skid Row. And the LA County jail. And a locked psychiatric ward, where a patient listened to Gupta play the Bach Chaconne in silence and then asked: Do you see me? That question (simple, devastating, unanswerable in the way that only the most essential questions are) is the hinge on which RESTRUNG turns. Through the founding of Street Symphony, his nonprofit bringing chamber music into the places most people never go, Gupta discovered that music is not decoration but medicine; not entertainment but survival. The show moves between these worlds (the concert hall and the shelter, the prodigy's triumph and the artist's collapse) with live violin threading through every scene.
Credits
Written and performed by Vijay Gupta
Directed by Valerie Bischoff
Produced by Steve Goldbloom in association with Vijay Gupta