They call Joshua Bell “The Superstar of Classical Music.” The thirty-six year old violinist and musical icon from Bloomington, Indiana has performed in more than 1,000 live concerts with major orchestras and conductors around the world. He has to date recorded more than 30 CDs, has won 4 Grammy Awards and an Oscar. “Joshua plays like a god,” said composer John Corigliano, with whom he shared the Oscar for Best Original Score for the movie The Red Violin. Even newcomers to classical music can’t help but be moved by his playing.

The talented and handsome Bell, who also made People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World," opens up and poses for our cameras in his own New York downtown bachelor pad.

Joshua is currently on tour. Concert dates are updated daily at www.joshuabell.com

Interview by ALVINA COLLARDEAU

How old were you when you first picked up the violin?

JOSHUA BELL: I started playing when I was four. I grew up with music in the family. My mother played the piano and my father had a violin.  

You started your professional career at fourteen, didn't you?

Yes, that is when I got my first break. I played for the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Managers from New York came down to the performance and signed me up.  

How was it growing up with the label “child prodigy”? You had already found your vocation by then, hadn't you?

I always felt I was lucky to have the violin. It was a neat thing. I started to travel and play concerts and even started to make money early!  

Did you ever feel that you grew up too fast?

I still often behaved like a kid, even if I was around grown ups! By age 12, I was already spending my afternoons studying at the music school at the University of Indiana. I was supposed to practice all that time. But often I would disappear out the back door and go to a local video arcade and spend the entire four hours playing video games.

You could get away with that?

I'd wait until the last minute, which in some ways made me learn how to cram. This is very useful today in my career!

How is that?

Because I'm playing so many different pieces, I kind of have to cram. That's also part of my nature. I wait until the last minute, and then I just do everything very intensely. I can be disciplined only when the gun is at my head: if I have to learn something, I can sit for eight hours straight and completely focus.

It sounds like you thrive under pressure.

The more pressure is on me, the more I can focus, the better I can do. Which is helpful, you know, because, well, I'm always under pressure. I like the adrenaline and the excitement it brings.

You must be a gambler.

Yes, actually! I must have inherited the love of gambling from my mother. She plays poker three times a week. I like playing poker too, or betting on football or going to the casino and playing blackjack. The fact that I like to gamble, is probably connected to the way I run my life and the way I play the violin.   Because every time you get on stage it's a gamble. You don't know what's going to happen. That's why I like live performance more than recording, because you're risking and you're putting yourself on the line.

How does it feel after you play Carnegie Hall to a full house and you get a standing ovation?

It's definitely a huge rush playing in front of people. And definitely an ego boost! You are playing, and two thousand people clap… How could it not be a great thing for your ego? But it lasts only for a short time. I get insecure again after an hour! [laughs]  

What type of relationship do you strive for with your audience?

For me, the great moments of music are often the quietest moments. I believe more in trying to bring the audience on stage in an intimate way than belting out to the audience with my playing.

You play an average of 200 concerts a year! You're on the road constantly. How do you keep your inspiration, even when you might feel over-worked?

Sometimes it's awfully hard to get up in the morning and get on another plane and go to another airport. That's the chore. I just have to keep thinking the reward is the actual performing. I just love to perform!

Some describe the passion that you express on stage as almost palpable… that your performance gives them goose-bumps. Does the passion come from the music itself, or is music merely a vehicle for your own passion?

It is both. I think music is an outlet for your passion. But at the same time, your passion is being fed by music. It is both a release and an input. I can't imagine what I would be like as a person if I had never listened to Beethoven or Bach or Brahms or whatever. I mean, if we would be devoid of any art, I would be a different person.

How does all this emotion and intensity on stage compare with your every day life?

I think that you can't really separate who you are as an artist from who you are as a person. Some women I have dated think that by telling me, “I'm not interested in you as a violinist. I'm interested in you as you," that I'm going to like that they're not interested in me because of my music or success or whatever. But I think that doesn't really make sense. Because an artist is who I am.  

Let's talk about your violin.

Two years ago, I bought one of the great Stradivarius violins in the world. It was made in 1713. It has a famous history because it was owned by a well-known violinist at the beginning of the 20th Century. And it was stolen from him from his Carnegie Hall dressing room and it disappeared for fifty years, only to be recovered when the thief admitted on his death bed that he had stolen it fifty years earlier!

Did the drama of its history appeal to you?

Yes! But it is also one that I fell in love with within two minutes. I tried it at a “Violin Doctor” in London that I personally go to. They happened to have it in the shop and I just fell in love with it. I said “I have to have it!”

Well, it also was a Gibson Stradivarius with a price tag of about 4 million dollars, wasn't it?

It's a long story. I was under extreme time pressure to sell the violin that I had at the time, a 1732 Strad. But it all worked out within a couple of days of my deadline! [smiles]

A four million dollar violin. When you are on a plane, where do you put it?

I take it with me. I would never check it because it could get damaged. On a plane, I'll stick it in the overhead compartment.

Have you ever had problems traveling with it?

I've had a few scary moments...when I was in Communist Russia when they wanted to open up the violin and rip off the top to see if there was something hidden inside it. And a few other moments where some insensitive airline official wanted to have me check it. Or they would pick up the violin and knock it. It can be horribly stressful.

And how do you move around in New York City with it?

I take it on the subway!

Really?

Maybe I shouldn't say that? But I like taking the subway, and I take the violin on it. I think it would be very hard — if someone stole it — to do anything with a great violin like this. Unless, as I told you, when it was stolen from its previous owner. It was stolen by a violinist just to play in cafés. A pretty unusual situation!

What's on your latest CD release, Romance of the Violin?

It is the kind of album for someone who likes beautiful classical music, but doesn't know which composers to buy. I've chosen, basically, my desert island favorite melodies, from13 different great composers, and I've arranged them for violin and orchestra. It is beautiful music that can appeal to classical music lovers and others as well.

Who are your favorite composers?

Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann... They are all on this album!

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