Violin and direction

Joshua Bell

Lucerne Symphony Orchestra debut: November 10, 2010

Musical diversity and international success over three decades.

With a career spanning nearly four decades, GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated violinists of his time. He has performed with nearly every major orchestra in the world and continues to hold engagements as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor, and music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Bell’s highlights in the 2022-23 season include leading the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on a tour of South America to Sao Paulo, Bogotá and Montevideo, and in Europe, in Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Denmark and the United Kingdom. Joshua makes guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Sofia Philharmonic, Franz Schubert Filharmonia, and on a European tour with pianist Peter Dugan. This season, Bell will perform in the U.S. with the New York Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston, Baltimore and New Jersey.

Born in Bloomington, Indiana, Bell began playing the violin at age four and took lessons with Josef Gingold at age twelve. At 14, Bell made his debut with Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra and at 17 with the St. Louis Symphony at Carnegie Hall. At age 18, Bell signed with his first label, London Decca, and received the Avery Fisher Career Grant. In the years that followed, Bell was named “2010 Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America, named a “2007 Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, nominated for six GRAMMY® Awards, and awarded the 2007 Avery Fisher Prize. He also received the Indiana Governor’s Arts Award in 2003 and the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from the Jacobs School of Music in 1991. In 2000, he was named a “Living Legend of Indiana.”

Bell has served three U.S. presidents and the sitting justices of the United States Supreme Court. He participated in Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ first cultural mission to Cuba and accompanied Cuban and American musicians on the 2017 Emmy-nominated PBS special Live from Lincoln Center: Seasons of Cuba, which celebrates the renewed cultural diplomacy between Cuba and the United States.

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