Robert Gupta, child prodigy and friend of Nathaniel Ayers, is a violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. This photo depicts him with Maestro Zubin Mehta. A short biography about him is published at the LA Philharmonic's web site:
Violinist ROBERT VIJAY GUPTA joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the age of 19 in June 2007. Before joining the orchestra, Gupta held a Master’s degree in Music from Yale University and a Bachelor’s in Premedical Biology from Marist College. Parallel to his studies in biology, Gupta was also an undergraduate at the Manhattan School of Music where he studied Violin Performance, and at the Juilliard School of Music, Pre-College Division. His principal teachers include Glenn Dicterow, Ani Kavafian, and Isaac Stern.
Gupta made his solo debut at the age of eleven in Tel Aviv with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. In addition, has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Santa Barbara Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Japan, and the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has also performed widely as a chamber musician and recitalist on an international scale since the age of eight. Gupta was a finalist in the 2001 New York Philharmonic’s Young Artist competition and a Silver Medal winner in the Joyce Dutka Arts Foundation Competition, and has garnered several scholarships and distinguished awards from the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Yale School of Music.
Gupta also plays the Baroque violin, and took part in several prestigious early music collaborations with the Institute of Sacred Music and Schola Cantorum at Yale University, such as “The Passion Music of Dietrich Buxtehude” under the direction of Simon Carrington, “Music for the Chapel Royal of Louis XIV” with Graham O’Reilly, and “Bach’s Music for Christmas 1723” under Helmuth Rilling, to name a few.
Throughout his undergraduate course of study, Gupta was part of several extensive research projects in the field of neuro- and neurodegenerative biology. He held Research Assistant positions at CUNY Hunter College in New York City, where he worked on spinal chord neuronal regeneration, and at the Harvard Institutes of Medicine Center for Neurologic Diseases, where he studied the biochemical pathology of Parkinson's disease. Gupta led several research projects at Marist College, where he co-authored an award-winning study on the toxicological effects of platinum nanoparticles on embryonic chickens.
Credits
Photo online, courtesy Artistopia.com.
