Downtown Los Angeles is a neighborhood of extremes. On one end, there’s the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Frank Gehry-designed home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Less than 10 blocks away is Skid Row, the nation’s largest congregating spot for the homeless, where as many as 50,000 people can be found on the streets on any given night. Robert Gupta, the Philharmonic’s first violinist, is hoping to bridge the gap between the two sides by taking “music out of the ivory tower” of the concert hall and bringing it to people who would never hear it otherwise.

Gupta created the nonprofit Street Symphony, an ensemble of socially conscious musicians “dedicated to delivering the tremendous therapeutic power of live classical music to mentally ill individuals” in Los Angeles’ poorest communities.

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