New York City ? A prized violin that was stolen while its owner snoozed on a hot subway train has been recovered.

“I’m of course overjoyed!!!” Tom Chiu, a Juilliard School graduate and founder of the avant-garde Flux Quartet, wrote Wednesday in an e-mail message about his Scarampella violin.

The violin and his backpack were stolen June 27.

Chiu, who calls his violin his “heart and soul for the last 13 years,” said in a statement that the violin and the backpack and its contents were turned in to the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s lost-and-found, and an MTA official contacted him late Tuesday.

“Losing it was like losing my voice, my soul. So getting it back is just great,” said Chiu, the instrument again in hand.