About this Artist
With a career spanning almost four decades, Grammy Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated artists of his era. Bell has performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world and continues to maintain engagements as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor, and as the Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Bell’s highlights in the 2023/24 season include an international tour of his newly commissioned project The Elements, featuring works by renowned living composers. The work received its premiere performances with the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Hong Kong Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Seattle Symphony Orchestra. He released his new album on Sony Classical, Butterfly Lovers, in summer 2023. Bell also led the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on tour in Australia and throughout the United States. He appears as artist-in-residence this season with the NDR Elbphilharmonie and as guest artist with the New Jersey Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and more.
Born in Bloomington, IN, Bell began playing the violin at age 4 and at age 12 began studies with his mentor, Josef Gingold. At 14, Bell debuted with Riccardo Muti and The Philadelphia Orchestra, and he made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 17 with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. At 18, Bell signed with his first label, London Decca, and received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. In the following decades, Bell has been nominated for six Grammy Awards, was named Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and has received the Avery Fisher Prize. He also received the 2003 Indiana Governor’s Arts Award and in 2000 was named an Indiana Living Legend.
Bell has performed for three American presidents and the justices of the Supreme Court. He also participated in President Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ mission to Cuba, performing on an Emmy-nominated PBS Live from Lincoln Center special, Joshua Bell: Seasons of Cuba, celebrating renewed diplomacy between Cuba and the United States.