In Wednesday’s (12/9) Los Angeles Times, Steve Lopez writes that on Friday, he and Nathaniel Ayers attended a performance of Handel’s Messiah at Midnight Mission, an L.A.-based social services organization. Lopez is author of the 2008 book The Soloist about Ayers, who studied double bass at Juilliard and later became homeless on L.A.’s skid row. Ayers was “excited when I told him that violinist Vijay Gupta of the Los Angeles Philharmonic would be playing, and that a good friend of ours, Adam Crane, had flown in for the performance…. Crane … now an administrator for the St. Louis Symphony … was in communications at the Los Angeles Philharmonic [when he] opened the doors of Disney Hall to Mr. Ayers [in 2005]…. Gupta and Crane started what became Street Symphony … to take music into shelters, mental health centers and jails.” Lopez writes that at Friday’s concert, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross was there “and posted this on Facebook: ‘Hard to find the words to describe the Street Symphony’s performance of Handel’s “Messiah” at the Midnight Mission on skid row. “Wonderful” doesn’t seem quite right, since there was darkness all around, but it was.” ’ ” Click here to read Symphony magazine’s 2008 article about Lopez, Ayers, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Posted December 9, 2015
