Nathaniel ayers movie
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Today, his life is about film and book projects
by Louise Lee
In some ways, Nathaniel Ayers at age 57 is a typical adult beginner on the violin. Taking his first lesson just this March, he spent the session working on proper posture, including holding the fiddle, and playing a few scales. Ayers practices exercises and drills, working toward playing simple melodies. But there the similarities with the garden-variety novice end. Ayers, despite decades of affliction with untreated schizophrenia and life on the streets of Los Angeles’ Skid Row, demonstrates what other professional musicians say is a passionate musicality and an extensive knowledge of solo, chamber, and orchestral repertoire. Years of pushing his belongings in a shopping cart and sleeping among rats apparently hasn’t stopped Ayers from retaining a love of music that began when he was a teenager in Ohio and continued when he enrolled as a double-bass student at the Juilliard School in the 1970s.
And media have taken to his story in a big way.
Ayers first came to public attention in Los Angeles in 2005 a
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Nathaniel Ayers of Soloist Fame & Forced Medication
A tough call on medication
* Nathaniel Ayers has won victories in his battle to function despite schizophrenia. But he lands in a courtroom, and hard decisions await.
By STEVE LOPEZ,
Howard Askins grew up in New York, the son of blue-collar transit authority employees who expected him to go far, and he did. His first stop was Brown University, and then he was off to Harvard, where he earned both medical and law degrees before moving on to psychiatric residency at UCLA.
Nathaniel Ayers, like Askins, grew up working class — in his case, Cleveland was home. His dream was music, not medicine, and his hard work landed him at the prestigious Juilliard School for the Performing Arts in New York City, where he played for a time in the same orchestra as Yo-Yo Ma.
On Monday, the two African American men sat across from each other in a former pickle factory on San Fernando Road that serves as the mental health division of Los Angeles County Superior Court. The two have a deep mutual respect for one another, but a great
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Nathaniel Ayers
American musician
Musical artist
Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, Jr. (born January 31, 1951) is an American musician. He is the subject of numerous newspaper columns, a book, and a 2009 film adaptation based on the columns. A foundation bearing his name was started in 2008 with an aim to support artistically gifted people with mental illness.[1]
School and severe mental health crisis
Ayers began playing the double bass[2] during middle school. He attended the Juilliard School in New York as a double bassist,[3] but had a mental breakdown during his second year and was institutionalized. Ayers was one of the few black students at Juilliard at that time.
For some years he lived with his mother in Cleveland, Ohio, where he received electroconvulsive therapy for his illness to no avail. After his mother's death in 2000, he moved to Los Angeles, thinking that his father lived there. Homeless and debilitated with symptoms of schizophrenia, Ayers lived and played music on the streets.[4]
The Soloist
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