Joshua Bell [b. 1967], a native of Bloomington, Indiana, is one of the few child prodigy violinists of the past half-century to go on to a significant and rewarding professional career. He took up the instrument at the age of four; however, by all accounts he was able to enjoy a perfectly normal childhood outside of his musical studies. He made his professional debut at 14 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and he went on to earn a degree from Indiana University in 1989.
His recording career, exclusively with Sony Classical, encompasses nearly 40 CDs at last count. In addition to capturing on disc some of the more traditional works one associates with the solo violin—the Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Brahms concertos, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, etc.—Bell has also performed on several original movie soundtracks, including Angels and Demons, For Colored Girls and The Red Violin. Bell also received a Grammy nomination for the premiere of a new work, Gershwin Fantasy, which was based on themes from the opera, Porgy and Bess. He was also the first to perform specific violin works by Nicholas Maw, John Corigliano and Jay Greenburg, among other current American composers.
One of the reasons for Bell’s immense following—his extraordinary skill with the instrument notwithstanding—is his willingness to make a great many appearances on television and in other public venues. He has appeared numerous times as a guest on The Tonight Show and CBS Sunday Morning, as well as on public television’s Great Performances and Live From Lincoln Center.
Bell has received a number of awards for his playing as well as for his humanitarianism. In 2010 he was Instrumentalist of the Year as declared by the organization, Musical America, and he received the Avery Fisher Prize in 2007. The World Economic Forum named Bell a “young global leader,” and he has received the Humanitarian Award from Seton Hall University. Bell’s violin is a 1713 Stradivarius, known as the “Gibson ex Huberman.”
In January 2007, Bell participated in a social experiment at the instigation of a Washington Post columnist, where he played the part of a random street busker in one of Washington’s Metro stations. His 45-minute performance went virtually unnoticed, with fewer than 10 people bothering to stop and listen to his music out of more than a thousand passers-by. The article that resulted from this experiment won writer Gene Weingarten a Pulitzer Prize in 2008.
Joshua Bell plays the opening to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra [Tokyo, 2005] (Part 1):
(Part 2):