A Stradivari violin is coming to Kyiv!

The famous violinist will perform together with the Ukrainian New Era Orchestra conducted by the art director Tetiana Kalynychenko. It is not the first time that this team is organizing a visit of interesting foreign performers of academic music to Ukraine, because NEO considers ART diplomacy as one of important directions in its activity. Complex negotiations for several years with IMG Artists, a world-renown agency, which presents Joshua Bell, reached success only after Tetiana and Joshua communicated personally at the Verbier Festival (Switzerland).

A performance of stars of world renown in Ukraine is indeed a precedent from the category of impossible events for a variety of reasons. Bell is one of the most popular musicians in the world. His music achievements have won prizes and awards. In 2007 he won US highest award for outstanding achievement in classical music, Avery Fisher Prize. He is a winner of Echo Klassik, Musical America, Gramophone awards and is an exclusive performer of the Sony Classical Company.

Bell is a many-time nominee and winner of the Grammy Award, a winner of many titles, ranging from the Living Legend of Indiana to Instrumentalist of the Year. A participant of a number of popular television projects, Joshua Bell plays episodic parts in cinema (Music of the Heart with Meryl Strip in the leading role), performs jointly with Placido Domingo and Celine Dion, Sarah Brightman and Charles Aznavour, Sting and Josh Groban. Namely Bell was invited to perform John Corigliano’s music piece for the soundtrack to the film The Red Violin, after which Corigliano thanked him for the inspired performance at the Oscar awarding ceremony for the best original score. Later Bell’s violin was heard in the soundtrack to the film Angels & Demons. In 2009 Barack Obama heard Bell’s performance at Ford Theater in Washington, after that US president and his wife invited Bell to perform in the White House. In 2005 Bell was brought into the Hollywood Bowl.

Photo courtesy of the Del Arte PR company

This is a very remarkable story, which shows his inclination for taking part in extraordinary actions. On January 12, 2007 at the initiative of the newspaper Washington Post Bell played for 43 minutes in the lobby of a subway station in Washington as a usual street musician.

Joshua plays the violin Stradivari Gibson ex-Huberman with a French Tourte bow made in the 18th century. The tone of this instrument impresses with its flawless quality. “Its beauty seems to come from a different world, and the boundless deepness of the ‘resonant velvet’ of Bell’s violin from the very first sound evokes awe and produces the feeling of touching something really great.” The instrument was created in 1713 during the Golden Era of Antonio Stradivari, so it is 302  years old now. The price of the violin is growing with every year. At the moment its cost is assessed at 10 million dollars.

Joshua Bell will perform Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Concert for Violin with Orchestra in Kyiv, as well as the works from the 18th-19th centuries by Carl Maria von Weber, Norbert Burgmueller, and Camille Saint-Saens’s Odelette for flute and orchestra (soloist: Oleh Sheremeta, flute, Ukraine).