Indian-American violinist ROBERT VIJAY GUPTA joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in June 2007 at the age of 19, after receiving a Master’s degree in Music from Yale University and a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Marist College. Parallel to his undergraduate studies in biology, Gupta attended the Manhattan School of Music and the Juilliard School of Music, Pre-College Division. His principal teachers have included Ani Kavafian and Glenn Dicterow.

Gupta made his solo debut at the age of eleven in Tel Aviv with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. He has performed as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, among many others. He frequently appears on the Philharmonic’s Chamber Music Society and Green Umbrella new-music series, and has performed as a guest concertmaster with LA Opera under James Conlon and the Orquestra Comunitat de Valencia under Zubin Mehta.

Gupta directs a non-profit organization called Street Symphony, which actively brings live classical musical outreach concerts to deeply the nderserved mentally ill living within homeless, incarcerated, and Veteran communities on Skid Row and throughout Los Angeles. As a 2011 TED Senior Fellow, Gupta curates TEDxSkidRow, and speaks widely on issues of mental health advocacy through the arts.

Gupta recently crowdfunded his debut album Suryodaya through Kickstarter: the album includes the premiere of LA Phil Principal Timpanist Joseph Pereira’s Partita for Solo Violin, as well as Gupta’s own Jaunpuri. The album was recorded at Walt Disney Concert Hall on the 1716 “Milstein” Stradivarius in June 2011, and is available on iTunes.

Robert Gupta plays on a 2003 violin made by Kansas City luthier Anton Krutz.