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Violin
As he begins a busy 2006-07 concert season, Grammy® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell explores the world of opera and song in his new Sony Classical recording Voice of the Violin, the follow-up to his best-selling 2003 release Romance of the Violin, which Billboard Magazine named the 2004 Classical Album of the Year and Bell the Classical Artist of the Year. Voice of the Violin lets Bell’s Stradivarius take center stage in a selection of romantic classical arias and songs and includes a guest appearance by soprano Anna Netrebko.
An exclusive Sony Classical artist who has created a large and richly varied catalogue of recordings, Bell continues to win acclaim for his recent live recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.
After summer performances at Tanglewood, the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center, Joshua Bell’s 2006-2007 performance season includes concerts with the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London, as well as appearances with the London, Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Montreal, Dallas symphonies, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He has been invited for a residency with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at Disney hall. and will continue his role as Artistic Partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, play/conducting with them for several weeks and also directing London’s Academy of St.  Martin in the Fields on their Spring 2007 European tour. He will premiere a new work written for him by Edgar Meyer and in January of 2007, Bell will join pianist Jeremy Denk for a recital tour in the U.S. and Europe.
For over two decades, Joshua Bell has been captivating audiences worldwide with his poetic musicality. He came to national attention at the age of 14 in a highly acclaimed orchestral debut with Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra. A Carnegie Hall debut, the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and a recording contract further confirmed his unique presence in the music world. Now in his thirties, Bell’s career is exceptionally varied. He is equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra leader and his restless curiosity and multifaceted musical interests have taken him in exciting new directions, forging a unique career that has earned him the rare title of “classical music superstar.” In addition to his concert career, Bell enjoys chamber music collaborations with artists such as Pamela Frank, Steven Isserlis and Edgar Meyer as well as occasional collaborations with artists outside the classical arena, having shared the stage with Josh Groban, Bobby McFerrin, Chick Corea, James Taylor and Sting.
“Bell,” Gramophone stated simply, “is dazzling.”
Joshua Bell made his first recording at the age of 18, and he has an extensive catalogue of classical recordings resulting in a distinctive and wide-ranging body of work.
For three years, Bell was deeply involved in the creation of John Corigliano’s Academy Award-winning score for the 1999 film The Red Violin, released on Sony Classical. Bell performed the virtuosic solos on the soundtrack and served as an advisor and stand-in in for the film. In his Oscar acceptance speech, a jubilant Corigliano proclaimed, “Joshua plays like a God.” Bell collaborated with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on the world premiere in 2003of Corigliano’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra(“The Red Violin”), a concert work drawn from the film score. In June 2006, Bell, Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra recorded this concerto for Sony Classical. Corigliano wrote this work with “the sublime young virtuoso”, Joshua Bell in mind, but also honoring Corigliano’s father, the late violinist John Corigliano, for many years concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic and the concerto’s dedicatee. “Joshua’s playing resembles that of my father,” the composer said in a program note, adding that Bell “is an artist in the grand tradition. No cold, clinical dissection of a work would flow from his bow.” The new Sony Classical disc will couple the concerto with Bell’s recording of Corigliano’s Sonata for Violin and Piano. It is scheduled for 2007 release.
From the classical repertoire, Bell has made critically acclaimed recordings for Sony Classical of the concertos of Beethoven and Mendelssohn (both featuring his own cadenzas), and Sibelius and Goldmark, as well as the Grammy Award winning Nicholas Maw concerto. His Grammy-nominated recording Gershwin Fantasy premiered a new work for violin and orchestra based on themes from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Its success led to an all-Bernstein recording (also a Grammy nominee) that included the premiere of the West Side Story Suite as well as a new recording of the composer’s Serenade. With the composer and double bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, Bell appears on the Grammy-nominated crossover recording Short Trip Home and a disc of concert works by Meyer and the 19th-century composer Giovanni Bottesini. Bell also collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on the Grammy-winning spoken word children’s album, Listen to the Storyteller and Bela Fleck’s Grammy Award winning Perpetual Motiom. He has twice performed on the Grammy Awards telecast in recent years, performing music from Short Trip Home and West Side Story Suite.
In addition to Grammy Awards, Bell has won the Mercury Music Prize for the Maw concerto recording with Sir Roger Norrington and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Germany’s Echo Klassik for Sibelius/Goldmark concerto recording with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
Among Bell’s most recent recordings for Sony Classical are performances on two film soundtracks, the Classical Brit-nominated Ladies in Lavender and Academy Award-winning film Iris, in an original score by James Horner. Bell has also appeared as himself in the film Music of the Heart starring Meryl Streep, and millions of people are just as likely to see him on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show, CBS’ “Sunday Morning” and their Saturday show “Second Cup Café” this fall as on the PBS programs Great Performances—Joshua Bell: West Side Story Suite from Central Park, Joshua Bell at the Penthouse—Live From Lincoln Center, Memorial Day Concert, Sesame Street and A&E’s Biography. He was one of the first classical artists to have a music video air on VH1, and he has been the subject of a BBC Omnibus documentary. Bell has been profiled in publications ranging from Newsweek to People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People issue, Gramophone and The New York Times, which stated, “No one stands in Mr. Bell’s shadow.”
Bell and his two sisters grew up on a farm in Bloomington, Indiana. As a child, he indulged in many passions outside of music, becoming an avid computer game player and a competitive athlete. He placed fourth in a national tennis tournament at age 10 and still keeps his racquet close by. Bell received his first violin at age four after his parents, both psychologists by profession, noticed him plucking tunes with rubber bands he had stretched around the handles of his dresser drawers. By 12 he was serious about the instrument, thanks in large part to the inspiration of renowned violinist and pedagogue Josef Gingold, who had become his beloved teacher and mentor.
In 1989, Bell received an Artist Diploma in Violin Performance from Indiana University. His alma mater also honored him with a Distinguished Alumni Service Award only two years after his graduation. He has been named an “Indiana Living Legend” and received the Indiana Governor’s Arts Award. In ’05 he was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame. He currently serves on the Artist Committee of the Kennedy Center Honors.
Joshua Bell plays the 1713 Gibson ex Huberman Stradivarius.
For more information, visit www.joshuabell.com.
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