Newsday, January 2005

Though he has reached the venerable age of 37 and maintains a killer concert schedule, former child prodigy violinist and perennial dreamboat Joshua Bell looks and sounds fresher than ever. His "Romance of the Violin," a collection of rapturously melodic selections for violin and orchestra, was named Billboard's top-selling classical CD of 2004. It will be re-released on February 8 as an audio-DVD DualDisc, along with highlights from Bell's January 2004 "Live from Lincoln Center" telecast.

Bell and pianist Jeremy Denk play Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Janácek, Bartók and Wieniawsky on Friday, February 4 at the Tilles Center in Brookville. They repeat the program on February 9 at Avery Fisher Hall, and Bell plays Saint-Saëns' B-Minor Concerto with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in May at Carnegie Hall.

Bearing his talent and charms almost sheepishly, Bell slunk into humming Union Square bistro L'Express for chamomile tea and conversation with frequent Newsday contributor Marion Lignana Rosenberg.

You have a lot of fan websites maintained by young women.
I like it! It's nice to see young people taking an interest in classical music.
The sites are heavy on photo galleries.
I don't really look at the message boards anymore. It gets a little weird. But they shun superficial talk about pin-up stuff… [Giggles]
You have your own site, too.
It would be nice of you to mention it. [www.joshuabell.com] The Internet is where young people go to find information and decide what to do. So when the Web was just getting started, I made a push for us to have a presence. I still get e-mails from around the world, even from places where I've never played.
Unlike many former prodigies, you made the transition to adult musician with real grace.
The problem with a lot of prodigies is that they get pushed by outside forces—their parents, their managers—and then reach a certain point and wonder why they're even doing it. I owe a lot to my parents, because they never expected me to become a musician.
You grew up in Indiana?
Yes. I did sports. I went to public schools. I had a normal life. And my career wasn't an overnight thing, like if I had won some big competition. I made my debut at 14 and did more each year, little by little. So I'm quite lucky.
Did you discover pop music late, like many classical geeks?
In my teens, I listened to other kinds of music—Genesis and the Beatles. Then I started listening to jazz…
And now?
I'm still a fan of people like Sting and Peter Gabriel. But at the Grammy Awards, I meet current pop musicians who apparently are very famous, and a lot of the time I don't even know who they are.
What do you listen to in your down time?
Often I don't listen to music at all. I like silence.
Some critics sneer at recordings like "Romance of the Violin," saying that they don’t serve the core classical audience.
"Romance" was consciously geared toward general listeners, but I don't feel it's cheap in any way. It's almost looking back at this whole tradition of transcriptions, which freed people to play classical music…
In their parlors!
Exactly. I would hate for classical music to become a kind of museum where people go to hear an "authentic" reproduction of something written hundreds of years ago. Music should feel natural and current, even if it's classical music.
And new music?
I like modern music to gravitate toward the melodic rather than the avant-garde. I want it to be moving to me, not just interesting and… [Pause]
Crunchy?
Yes. I mean, "provocative" isn't enough. When you learn the classics, you get spoiled. You understand every note and what it's saying in the overall picture. You don't feel like it's just a bunch of random directions.
What new works are coming up for you?
John Corigliano wrote a 40-minute concerto expanding on the piece he wrote for the movie "The Red Violin," which I'm recording next year. Behzad Ranjbaran, who also went to Indiana University, wrote a beautiful concerto that I premiered in 2003. And I've commissioned Edgar Meyer to write a piece for my 2006 recital tour.
Young Alexander the Great supposedly wept because he felt there were no worlds left for him to conquer. And you?
[Peals of laughter] My God, no! There's no shortage of paths to take: I'd like to do some more composing, some more conducting… It's kind of frustrating that life is so short.