Synopsis:
 
When Steve Lopez sees Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-sting violin on Los Angeles' Skid Row, he envisions "Violin Man" as the topic of his next column for the LA Times - only to unearth an even more extraordinary story about the mysterious street musician.
More than thirty years earlier, Ayers had been a promising classical bass student at Julliard - ambitious, charming, and also one of the few African-Americans at the school -  until he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by a mental breakdown. When Lopez finds him, Ayers is alone, suspicious of everyone, and deeply troubled, but glimmers of that brilliance are still there.
From an impromptu concert of Beethoven's Eighth in the Second Street tunnel to a performance of Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites on Skid Row, the two men learn to communicate through Ayers's music. Their bond takes tortous turns as Lopez imagines he can change Ayers's life - finding him logding, reconnecting him with his family, taking him to Disney Concert Hall to meet a former Julliard classmate. For each triumph, there is a crushing disappointment, yet neither man gives up. And though it's Ayers he sets out to save, Lopez finds that his own life is profoundly changed.