The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship

Ayers has his first cello lesson with L.A.Philharmonic cellist Peter Snyder. Lopez, Ayers, and Snyder all go to Ayers’s apartment in the Ballington. Ayers grows “distant and looks confused,” and Snyder presents “an open mind and more than a little confidence (162). Snyder gives Ayers Pablo Casals’s “Song of the Birds,” and Ayers begins playing.

As Lopez hears Snyder play, he realizes “for the first time how far Nathaniel has to go” (166). However, Snyder is impressed and says, “He might be a musical genius” (167). At the end of the lesson, Snyder encourages Ayers to come back, and Ayers resists, saying he instead prefers to play in the tunnel. They tentatively agree to another lesson in the apartment.

Lopez also presents the perspective of Gary Karr, Ayers’s former teacher at Julliard. Karr recalls Ayers’s “natural talent” and discusses how his issues “made him really hard to reach” (165). Karr believes that Ayers’s mental issues may be dangerous and tells Julliard he will not give lessons without someone else in the room. The university does not take Karr’s recommendation seriously, saying that Ayers’s problems are based on racial inequality.