Founder/Artistic Director

Violinist ROBERT VIJAY GUPTA joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in June 2007 at the age of 19. Before joining the orchestra, Gupta received a Master’s degree in Music from Yale University and a Bachelor’s degree in premedical 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 Glenn Dicterow, Ani Kavafian, and Isaac Stern.

Gupta made his solo debut at the age of eleven in Tel Aviv with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Maestro 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 has also performed widely as a chamber musician and recitalist on an international scale since the age of eight, and frequently appears on the Philharmonic’s Chamber Music and Green Umbrella new music series.

In 2010, Gupta led the Los Angeles Opera as concertmaster in the American premiere of Franz Schreker’s “Die Gezeicheneten” as part of the company’s “Recovered Voices” project directed by James Conlon. In summer 2009, Gupta performed as an associate concertmaster with the Orquestra Comunitat de Valencia at the Palau de Les Arts in Valencia, Spain in an internationally acclaimed production of the complete Wagner “Ring” Cycle led by Zubin Mehta.

Gupta is passionate about education and outreach; he was featured in several articles by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, and in a 60 Minutes piece on Nathaniel Ayers, the subject of Lopez’ book, “The Soloist”. Gupta brings his musical activism to communities throughout Southern California, and curates a free chamber music series for the homeless and mentally ill on Skid Row at the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health.

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. Robert Gupta is a TED Senior Fellow.

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