Joshua Bell is looking forward to coming to Columbus tonight and meeting new people.
“It’s always fun to discover new places,” he said. And he’s no stranger to Georgia, having performed in Atlanta in October.
Bell enjoys spending time after each concert in the performance center’s lobby, autographing CDs, chatting with audience members and taking photographs.
“I like to connect with the audience a little bit,” he said. “There’s always that barrier between the stage and the audience.”
He likes to break that barrier down, especially when he finds youngsters who are studying violin.
“I get to meet them and it’s fun for me,” he said.
A local acquaintance
Sergui Schwartz, the Columbus State University Schwob School of Music’s professor of violin and the William B. and Sue Marie Turner Distinguished Faculty Chair in Violin, has known Bell for more than 10 years.
“Joshua Bell and I have been acquainted with each other for more than two decades,” Schwartz said. “He is one of the few highly sought violinists I know who continues to deliver the highest standards of artistry and virtuosity. His versatility and broad range of repertoire are matched by a truly brilliant technique, imaginative phrasing and a unique ability to connect emotionally with his audiences. My students and I are looking forward with great anticipation to his performance at RiverCenter.”
Getting a younger audience
Bell is well aware of the struggle to attract younger audiences to classical concerts.
“When I’m in town, I try visiting schools. Music in schools is important.”
He also enjoys collaborating with artists like Josh Groban and Sting. He thinks if youngsters get hooked on music early and often, it may carry into attending classic concerts as well.
Bell’s doing his best in that regard.
His CD, “At Home with Friends,” features Sting, Groban and Regina Spektor.
Bell holds salons (gatherings where musicians of various genres meet to share ideas and thoughts) at his home. Sometimes when he and his guests perform at the gatherings, he calls them musicales.
Yet another job
Besides recording music and performing all over the world, Bell is also the music director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, a chamber orchestra based in London.
He often performs with that orchestra, so he’s familiar with the musicians and its mission.
Instead of conducting from the front of the stage facing the orchestra, Bell will be conducting from the concertmaster’s seat.
“I’ll lead with my bow,” he said. ”It’s kind of a different way of conducting. I’ll probably put down the violin and conduct with a baton.”
Aspiring to be a composer
This accomplished violinist, leaves writing music to others, at least for now.
“I aspire to be a composer,” Bell said. “I do write my own cadenzas.”
(A cadenza is “an extended virtuosic section for the soloist usually near the end of a movement of a concerto” according to answers.com)
“It’s very rewarding,” he said of writing his own cadenzas.
What he plays
Bell plays the 1713 Gibson ex Huberman Stradivarius violin and uses a late 18th century French bow made by Francois Tourte.
