I've become somewhat of an NPR junkie. Yesterday on Fresh Air, the most amazing story was featured. I was so touched by it that I sat in my car and listened for half an hour.
It was an interview with an LA Times journalist name Steve Lopez who befriended a street musician in downtown Los Angeles. It turns out that this man, Nathaniel Ayers, was once a student at Juilliard, and battled schizophrenia for a number of years and was homeless, living on Skid Row in downtown LA. Lopez saw his talent when he spotted him playing a two-string violin and decided to see if there was a way he could help the man. After writing a few columns about him in the LA Times, people started hearing about his story and donating instruments for Lopez to give to the man. Through playing music again (violin and cello), Ayers slowly decided to get help and reengage with the world. Lopez helped him in several other ways- finding him an apartment, getting him psychiatric help, and introducing him to musicians from the LA Philharmonic. Ayers is now taking lessons with musicians from the Philharmonic, and has goals to become a music therapist.
I'm not doing the story justice- you've got to listen to it for yourself on the NPR website here. The interview was featuring Lopez's book which came out yesterday entitled The Soloist: A Lost Dream, An Unlikely Friendship, and the Power of Music. And, there's a movie in the making- starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx! I don't know how to feel about that- but I like the fact that his story is being told. I know that it's shown me how much I've taken my mental health and musical training for granted.
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