In his book, The Soloist, Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Lopez (2008) tells the moving story of his relationship with a homeless man named Nathanael Ayers. Ayers is a Cleveland-born Juilliard School of Music graduate who develops schizophrenia and ends up homeless in Los Angeles playing his violin on the streets. One day Lopez encounters Ayers and is moved by the beautiful music coming from the violin of this bedraggled homeless man.