debut book
Restrung
A Memoir of Music and Transformation
For years, Vijay Gupta lived in the world of major orchestras and international stages. But the work that reshaped him — and eventually reshaped Street Symphony — began in the shelters, clinics, and community rooms of Skid Row and inside L.A. County jails. That is where he learned the power of listening, and where he saw up close the way music can be a lifeline for people carrying more than the world usually notices.
Restrung tells that story from the inside. It follows Vijay through burnout and collapse, and into the work that rebuilt his life: showing up week after week with musicians and neighbors who taught him what it means to listen with care. It is a book about finding purpose in community, and about how music can hold people together when everything else falls apart.
All proceeds from the first year support Street Symphony programs, helping us continue the work that inspired this memoir and strengthening our commitment to human connection through music.
INFO FROM MY LATEST NEWSLETTER
When I first brought my violin into Skid Row, I thought I was there to help, maybe even to heal.
In shelters, clinics, and county jails, Beethoven’s fury sounded familiar. In a county jail, an inmate said to me, “It’s fitting that you’re playing Schumann in a place like this”. And Handel’s Messiah, written when the composer was bankrupt and broken, became a hymn sung by people who understand what it meant to start over, even in the depth of despair, and shout, “Hallelujah!”
In Skid Row, the music came alive in ways we had never imagined.
I began working on a book five years ago, thinking it was a book about Street Symphony. When I’m lucky enough to be invited to speak for audiences all over the country—like this year, at the American Medical Association, or Tanglewood, or Occidental College—I’m always asked:
“When are you starting a Street Symphony here?”
So I started writing a handbook, thinking I’d share what I’ve learned from sixteen years of making music in shelters, clinics, and county jails, among people we all-too-often call “the marginalized.”
But writing, like all art, like love, humbled me.
As I started writing, I realized I was writing a very different kind of book. In fact, I was writing a story I’d avoided telling, even to myself. How trying to be “a child prodigy” cost me a childhood. How starting college at 13—and then another one at 15—all while my family was facing financial ruin—nearly pulled me apart, especially when my parents demanded that I become “another Dr. Gupta.” And how, even joining the LA Phil at 19, becoming the youngest violinist to ever hold a position in a major American orchestra—felt empty, especially when I encountered Skid Row for the first time.
And how, by going to Skid Row—out of a desire to heal, to fix what I saw broken—I started to see, and then to mend, the broken parts of myself.
I’ve shared pieces of this story for years, and now, I’m so grateful to be offering the whole of it, and myself, to you—my family, friends, and supporters—in this new email newsletter.
I’d be honored if you’d consider pre-ordering the book. Proceeds of pre-orders will support Street Symphony programs like Re/Sound, as well as an expansion of our programs into state prisons across California.
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