Joshua Bell, director and violin

With a career spanning more than 30 years as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and conductor, Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated violinists of his era. An exclusive Sony Classical artist, he has recorded more than 40 CDs garnering Grammy, Mercury, Gramophone and Echo Klassik awards, and is a recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize, as well as the Lumiere Prize for his work in the sphere of Virtual Reality.  Named the Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in 2011, he is the only person to hold this post since Sir Neville Marriner formed the orchestra in 1958, and recently renewed his contract through 2020. In 2016, Sony released Bell’s album For the Love of Brahms with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk, followed in 2017 by the Joshua Bell Classical Collection, a 14 CD set of Bell’s Sony recording highlights from the past 20 years.  

Summer 2017 saw Joshua Bell perform at the BBC Proms with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, at the Verbier Festival, as Artist In Residence at the Edinburgh International Festival and – in the US - at Tanglewood, Ravinia, and the Mostly Mozart Festival.   In the 2017/18 season in the US, Bell takes part in the New York Philharmonic’s celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s centennial, performing Bernstein’s Serenade led by Alan Gilbert, and also appears with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra among others. His North American recital tours take him to Carnegie Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center and Washington D.C.’s Strathmore Center. Highlights in Europe include appearances as soloist with the Vienna Symphony and Danish National Symphony; as director and soloist with the Orchestre National de Lyon; and recitals in Paris, Zurich, Geneva, Bologna, Milan and London. With the Academy of St Martin in the Fields he will tour widely including in the United Kingdom, United States and Europe, featuring performances in London, New York, San Francisco, Reykjavik and at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. 

Convinced of the value of music as a diplomatic and educational tool, Bell participated in President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ first cultural mission to Cuba.  He is also involved in Turnaround Arts, another project implemented by the Committee and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts which provides arts education to low-performing elementary and middle schools. 

Joshua Bell performs on the 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin and uses a late 18th century French bow by François Tourte. 

Photo: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Edgar Meyer, double bass, composer

In demand as both a performer and a composer, Edgar Meyer has formed a role in the music world unlike
any other. Hailed by The New Yorker as “...the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively un-chronicled
history of his instrument”, Mr. Meyer’s unparalleled technique and musicianship in combination with his
gift for composition have brought him to the fore, where he is appreciated by a vast, varied audience. His
uniqueness in the field was recognized by a MacArthur Award in 2002.

As a solo classical bassist, Mr. Meyer can be heard on a concerto album with the St. Paul Chamber
Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff featuring Bottesini’s Gran Duo with Joshua Bell, Meyer’s own
Double Concerto for Bass and Cello with Yo-Yo Ma, Bottesini’s Bass Concerto No. 2, and Meyer’s own
Concerto in D for Bass. He has also recorded an album featuring three of Bach’s Unaccompanied Suites
for Cello. In 2006, he released a self-titled solo recording on which he wrote and recorded all of the
music, incorporating piano, guitar, mandolin, dobro, banjo, gamba, and double bass. In 2007,
recognizing his wide-ranging recording achievements, Sony/BMG released a compilation of “The Best of
Edgar Meyer”. In 2011 Mr. Meyer joined cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mandolinist Chris Thile, and fiddler Stuart
Duncan for the Sony Masterworks recording “The Goat Rodeo Sessions” which was awarded the 2012
Grammy® Award for Best Folk Album.

As a composer, Mr. Meyer has carved out a remarkable and unique niche in the musical world. One of
his most recent compositions is the Double Concerto for Double Bass and Violin which received its world
premiere July 2012 with Joshua Bell at the Tanglewood Music Festival with the Boston Symphony
Orchestra. Mr. Meyer and Mr. Bell have also performed the work at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los
Angeles Philharmonic, the Aspen Music Festival, and with the Nashville and Toronto symphony
orchestras. In the 2011-12 season, Mr. Meyer was composer in residence with the Alabama Symphony
where he premiered his third concerto for double bass and orchestra. Mr. Meyer has collaborated with
Béla Fleck and Zakir Hussain to write a triple concerto for double bass, banjo, and tabla, which was
commissioned for the opening of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville. The triple concerto
was recorded with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin and featured on the 2009
recording The Melody of Rhythm, a collection of trio pieces all co-composed by Mr. Meyer, Mr. Fleck
and Mr. Hussain. Mr. Meyer has performed his second double bass concerto with the Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestra and his first double bass concerto with Edo de Waart and the Minnesota Orchestra.

Other compositions of Mr. Meyer’s include a violin/piano work which has been performed by Joshua Bell
at New York’s Lincoln Center, a quintet for bass and string quartet premiered with the Emerson String
Quartet and recorded on Deutsche Grammophon, a Double Concerto for Bass and Cello premiered with
Yo-Yo Ma and The Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, and a violin concerto written for
Hilary Hahn which was premiered and recorded by Ms. Hahn with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra led by
Hugh Wolff.

Collaborations are a central part of Mr. Meyer’s work. His longtime collaboration with fellow MacArthur
Award recipient Chris Thile continues in 2014 with the release on Nonesuch Records a recording of all
new original material by the two genre bending artists, a follow up to their very successful 2008 cd/dvd
on Nonesuch. Mr. Meyer and Mr. Thile will embark on a nationwide tour in Fall 2014 appearing in many
of the major cities in the US. Mr. Meyer’s previous performing and recording collaborations include a
duo with Béla Fleck; a quartet with Joshua Bell, Sam Bush and Mike Marshall; a trio with Béla Fleck and Mike Marshall; and a trio with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O’Connor. The latter collaborated for the 1996 Appalachia Waltz release which soared to the top of the charts and remained there for 16 weeks. Appalachia Waltz toured extensively in the U.S., and the trio was featured both on the David Letterman
Show and the televised 1997 Inaugural Gala. Joining together again in 2000, the trio toured Europe, Asia
and the US extensively and recorded a follow up recording to Appalachia Waltz, Appalachian Journey,
which was honored with a Grammy® Award. In the 2006-2007 season, Mr. Meyer premiered a piece for
double bass and piano performed with Emanuel Ax. Mr. Meyer also performs with pianist Amy
Dorfman, his longtime collaborator for solo recitals featuring both classical repertoire and his own
compositions, Mike Marshall in duo concerts and the trio with Béla Fleck and Zakir Hussain which has
toured the US, Europe and Asia together.

Mr. Meyer began studying bass at the age of five under the instruction of his father and continued further
to study with Stuart Sankey. In 1994 he received the Avery Fisher Career Grant and in 2000 became the
only bassist to receive the Avery Fisher Prize. Currently, he is Visiting Professor of Double Bass at the
Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.