Nathaniel Ayers plays the cello. Photo by Steve Lopez/Los Angeles Times.
In Thursday’s (3/27) Los Angeles Times, Steve Lopez writes, “The year was 2005…. I heard music in Pershing Square, followed the sound and spotted [Nathaniel Ayers] next to a shopping cart heaped over with his belongings…. Mr. Ayers [was playing] a violin that was missing two strings, trying to get back on track three decades after illness forced him out of New York’s prestigious Juilliard School. [I got] to know this Cleveland-born prodigy while [he was] trying to navigate a mental health system that left thousands fending for themselves on the streets of Los Angeles. Neither of us could have known where we’d be headed together in the years to come. To Disney Hall. To the Hollywood Bowl…. To the White House…. Soon after the first column I wrote about him, six readers sent him violins, two others gave him cellos and one donated a piano we hauled into a Skid Row music room, with his name on the door, at the homeless services agency … Through Mr. Ayers, I’ve met countless dedicated public servants in the mental health field. They are out there every day doing difficult, noble work, offering comfort and changing lives. But the need is great … Adam Crane, who was then working in communications at the L.A. Phil … reintroduced him to a community of musicians: Pianist Joanne Pearce Martin, cellist Ben Hong and violinist Vijay Gupta, among others, befriended Mr. Ayers and played music with him…. Being homeless for so many years has taken a toll on his body, and for the past couple of years, hip and hand injuries have kept him from playing his violin, cello, keyboard, double bass and trumpet…. When I asked Mr. Ayers his advice on getting by, even through all the hardships and disappointments he has faced, he pointed to the radio next to his bed, which is tuned always to classical KUSC, 91.5 … ‘Listen to the music,’ he said.”
