5 Minutes with Violinist and Disability Advocate Gaelynn Lea

By Greg Cahill | From the July/August 2026 issue of Strings

Gaelynn Lea is cruising through Manhattan on her way to a performance and onstage interview at Joe’s Pub, part of an eight-city national tour to promote It Wasn’t Meant to Be Perfect (Algonquin Books) and a companion audiobook with music. Five years in the making, the book recounts the violinist, singer, composer, author, and accessibility advocate’s struggle with a genetic condition called osteogenesis imperfecta, commonly known as brittle bone disease. But after speaking to Lea, one thing becomes clear: The disease has met its match in this bright, articulate, energetic, and gifted Minnesotan. As a disability rights advocate, she cofounded RAMPD (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities). In 2016, she won NPR’s coveted Tiny Desk Concert Contest; in 2019, she was the subject of a PBS-TV profile; in 2022, she penned the original score to the Broadway revival of Macbeth, starring actor Daniel Craig; and in 2024, she earned a Ford Foundation Disability Futures Fellowship and the Whippoorwill Artist Fellowship from the California Ats Council.

Now, she has distilled her experiences into her first book. “Someone came up to me after a show one night and said, ‘I really think you should write a memoir,’” she says. “At first, I thought, ‘Gee, that would take a lot of time,’ but the more I thought about it, I realized I do love writing and doing public speaking on accessibility, and I think there’s a real lack of accessibility education in our schools. I figured that if I wrote a memoir about being a musician, I could work in what I call my accessibility sneak attack.

“I thought this would be a fun way to educate people.”

Lea took time from her tour to discuss the book, her career, and her work as an accessibility advocate.

What is the biggest misconception people have about disabilities?

The one that is the hardest to dispel in my experience is that having a disability is in itself inherently negative. But the real issue is with society not being accepting of people with disabilities. Some people talk about disabilities in a manner loaded with negative language, and inadvertently they make others think of disabilities as a problem. But everyone, no matter who they are, goes through physical changes in life during which they are more physically able at certain times than at other times. I think it’s a natural part of the human experience.

What is the greatest challenge you have faced as a performing artist related to accessibility? 

It’s difficult to find venues that are welcoming of people with disabilities: the entrances, the bathrooms. For me, the ability to get onto the stage in the first place often is challenging. Legally, these venues should be fully accessible, even to performers at this point, due to the ADA [the 1990 federal civil rights laws found in the Americans with Disabilities Act]. But those regulations aren’t enforced or funded by the federal government, so the work of modifying venues has gone exceedingly slowly. It’s important to help venues understand the need to create accessibility so they can get creative about raising funds to make those changes. One club owner I met raised funds a few months before my show so he could install a chairlift on the stage. It was really neat. Also, I don’t need ASL or interpretive signing, but it’s important to include those service for the hearing impaired. While these challenges are reflected in the overall society, it hurts that people who present music, who are usually cool people, have this gap in their perception that doesn’t extend to accessibility. At this point, for those venues that know it’s a problem but have chosen to do nothing in that regard, well, that just feels discriminatory.

What is it about your personality that has led you to move into the public arena as an advocate for the disabled?

Well, I like performing, I love the joy of playing in public, so I was not averse to public speaking. I love disability culture and am passionate about it, but my advocacy is sort of a necessary evil, since I have this platform and it would be irresponsible of me not to say anything. And I would love to see a situation in which a person who is five years old now grows up in a world where they won’t face the same barriers. It’s frustrating how inaccessible the world is.

Given your successes as an artist, you have not allowed your disability to define your life. Is that accurate?

Yes and no. What I haven’t let define my life is the lack of access. I’m still going to find a way to do what I want to do. But in some ways, disability does define my life because it has made me the person that I am and shapes how I view the world. What hasn’t defined me is what society thinks of my disability. I am able to set my own definitions and live a happy and joyful life, even if things aren’t the way they should be.

Yet, a lot of folks facing those same chal-lenges might just give up. What drives you?

I believe that people with disabilities are equally as valuable. If I give up, it’s like admitting defeat and accepting the view that I’m a second-class citizen. I don’t want to give up. I just want things to get better. I love performing. I love traveling. I love meeting people. As a kid, I was very lucky. I was raised in a creative household, and that way of thinking drives me as a problem solver. I see a problem and I have to solve it. That’s just who I am.

Was there an element of self-discovery in writing It Wasn’t Meant to Be Perfect?

Yeah, I discovered a lot about creativity. I had never written anything like this. I found a gratitude for all the pieces that help to make my life what it is. That’s what the title is about: There are a lot of things in life that are difficult, but in the end, those challenges often are what shape us in a really important way.