“It definitely gives me a pause, to wanna say, do I wanna go back and do this again and put myself out there in harm's way,” Ian Forrest says.
A cellist performing on a New York City subway platform was the victim of a violent attack. It is unclear whether he'll play underground again.
As Ian Forrest, 29, was playing his cello at New York’s Herald Square station, a popular place for street musicians to play, a random woman walked up behind him, picked up his metal water bottle, and bashed him in the head. After the woman hit Forrest, she disappeared.
“In the middle of one of the songs I was doing I just felt this impact, this terrible crashing pain along the back of my head,” Forrest tells Inside Edition
Forrest is a third-year medical student at Mount Sinai in Manhattan. As an accomplished cellist, he played his instrument in the subway for the joy of performing for people.
The medical student was invited to play the national anthem at Madison Square Garden last December before a basketball game between the New York Knicks and the Charlotte Hornets. Forrest also performed at a concert featuring singer Josh Groban and at Radio City Music Hall after being discovered in the subway.
“It does anger you that just in the subway station, you’re doing your own thing that that can all be broken in a quick moment with an act of violence and hatred,” Forrest says.
The 29-year-old says this was not the first time he had been attacked. He says he was punched and choked while playing in Times Square in June.
“At the end of a performance, this man came over and tried to steal my cello, my donations, and then proceeded to punch me repeatedly in the face, put me in a chokehold,” Forrest says.
Forrest vowed after the first attack that he would not stop performing, but after his recent attack, he may not go back underground.
“It definitely gives me a pause, to wanna say, do I wanna go back and do this again and put myself out there in harm's way,” Forrest says.
A safe place for him to play now is the atrium of Mount Sinai Hospital, filling the air with music.
