Joshua Bell

JOSHUA BELL has enchanted audiences worldwide with his breathtaking virtuosity and tone of rare beauty. His restless curiosity and multifaceted musical interests have taken him in exciting new directions which have earned him the rare title of “classical music superstar.” Often referred to as the poet of the violin, Bell is the recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize and is the newly named Music Director of The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Bell first came to national attention at the age of 14 in a highly acclaimed orchestral debut with Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra. His Carnegie Hall debut and a recording contract further confirmed his presence in the music world. Today he is equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestra leader and composer who performs his own cadenzas to several of the major concerto repertoire. “Bell, Gramophone stated simply, is dazzling.”
Bell’s 2011 festival appearances include Ravinia, Tanglewood, Verbier and Mostly Mozart. He will perform with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal, Dallas, Colorado, Atlanta, and National Symphony orchestras, in San Francisco, as part of the Symphony’s 100th anniversary celebration in recital, with the orchestra, and as leader and soloist with The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Fall highlights include a recital at Carnegie Hall, appearances with the New York Philharmonic and extensive tours through Europe including cities such as Munich, Berlin, Vienna and Paris.
2012 highlights include a 15-city US tour with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and a North American recital tour with pianist Sam Haywood. In Europe, Bell will tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski and in recital with Jeremy Denk in cities to include London, Paris and Berlin.
Bell records exclusively for Sony Classical, a MASTERWORKS label. French Impressions, his new album with Jeremy Denk will be released in January 2012 and is Bell’s first sonata recording for Sony Classical. The disc will include repertoire by Ravel, Saint Saëns and Franck.
Since his first LP recording at age 18, Bell has recorded more than 36 CDs. Recent releases include the soundtrack to For Colored Girls, At Home With Friends, featuring Chris Botti, Sting, Josh Groban, Regina Spektor, Tiempo Libre and others, the Defiance soundtrack, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, The Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic, The Red Violin Concerto, The Essential Joshua Bell, Voice of the Violin and Romance of the Violin which Billboard named the 2004 Classical CD of the Year, and Bell the Classical Artist of the Year. He has also recorded critically acclaimed recordings of Sibelius and Goldmark as well as Beethoven and Mendelssohn concertos both featuring his own cadenzas, and the Grammy Award winning Nicholas Maw concerto. His Grammy-nominated recording Gershwin Fantasy premiered a new work for violin and orchestra based on themes from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. Its success led to a Grammy-nominated all-Bernstein recording that included the premiere of the West Side Story Suite as well as a new recording of the composer’s Serenade. With the composer and double bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, Bell appeared on the Grammy-nominated crossover recording Short Trip Home and a disc of concert works by Meyer and the 19th-century composer Giovanni Bottesini. Bell also collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on the Grammy-winning spoken word children’s album, Listen to the Storyteller and Bela Fleck’s Grammy Award winning Perpetual Motion. Sony Classical film soundtracks on which Bell has performed also include The Red Violin, which won the Oscar for Best Original Score, the Classical Brit-nominated Ladies in Lavender and Academy Award-winning film Iris.
Bell has premiered new works by composers Nicholas Maw, John Corigliano, Aaron Jay Kernis, Edgar Meyer, Behzad Ranjbaran and Jay Greenberg.
Bell and his two sisters grew up on a farm in Bloomington, Indiana. As a child, he indulged in many passions outside of music, becoming an avid computer game player and a competitive athlete. He placed fourth in a national tennis tournament at age 10 without having taken a single lesson, and still keeps his racquet close by. Bell received his first violin at age four after his parents, both mental health professionals, noticed him plucking tunes with rubber bands he had stretched around the handles of his dresser drawers. By 12 he was serious about the instrument, thanks in large part to the inspiration of renowned violinist and pedagogue Josef Gingold, who had become his beloved teacher and mentor.
Millions of people are just as likely to have seen Bell on The Tonight Show as Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose, or CBS Sunday Morning. In 2010 Bell starred in his fifth Live From Lincoln Center Presents broadcast titled: Joshua Bell with Friends@ The Penthouse. Other PBS shows include Great Performances – Joshua Bell: West Side Story Suite from Central Park, Memorial Day Concert performed on the lawn of the United States Capitol, Sesame Street and A&E’s Biography. He has twice performed on the Grammy Awards telecast, performing music from Short Trip Home and West Side Story Suite. He was one of the first classical artists to have a music video air on VH1, he has been the subject of a BBC Omnibus documentary and he appeared as himself in the film Music of the Heart starring Meryl Streep. Bell has been profiled in publications ranging from The New York Times and Newsweek to People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People issue, Gramophone and USA Today.
Stated Strad: “Joshua Bell will be the one remembered in 50 years time.”
In 1989, Bell received an Artist Diploma in Violin Performance from Indiana University. His alma mater honored him with a Distinguished Alumni Service Award only two years after his graduation. He has been named an “Indiana Living Legend” and has received the Indiana Governor’s Arts Award.
Bell was named 2010 Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America Bell, he is an inductee of the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame, recognized as a young global leader by the World Economic Forum, serves on the artist committee of the Kennedy Center Honors and is on the Board of Directors of the NewYork Philharmonic. He is the recipient of the Humanitarian Award from Seton Hall University; was honored by Education Through Music for his dedication to sharing his love of classical music with disadvantaged youth and received the Academy of Achievement Award for exceptional accomplishment in the arts.
In 2009 he performed at Ford’s Theatre before President Obama which was followed by an invitation from the President and Mrs. Obama to perform at the White House.
Bell performs on the 1713 Gibson ex Huberman Stradivarius violin and uses a late18th century French bow by Francois Tourte.

Source: Joshua Bell.com.

Russ Barenberg & Edgar Meyer

Russ Barenberg (acoustic guitar) & Edgar Meyer (double bass)

RUSS BARENBERG

Acoustic guitarist Russ Barenberg is known as one of the most melodic instrumentalists in contemporary acoustic music, and his compositions are among the finest the genre has to offer. He got his start in 1970 with the groundbreaking bluegrass band Country Cooking and since then has been a member of a variety of highly influential groups, most notably his collaboration from 1989 to 2001 in a trio with dobro master Jerry Douglas and bassist Edgar Meyer. Barenberg’s 1979 debut solo album Cowboy Calypso showcased his sophisticated playing and immediately established him as one of the premier composers and arrangers in the emerging new acoustic scene. His work since then, including his most recent collection, When at Last (2007), reflects an ever-deepening musicality with continuing dedication to vibrant, roots-based melodies and ensemble interplay. “Little Monk,” the opening track from When at Last, was nominated for the 2008 GRAMMY for Best Country Instrumental Performance.

Barenberg began playing guitar at the age of 13 in Chester County, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia. He took lessons from Alan Miller, the older brother of future band mate, guitarist John Miller, and was inspired early on by guitarists Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, and Clarence White along with a wide range of old-time, bluegrass and contemporary folk and blues artists.
While attending Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, in 1970, Barenberg joined with Peter Wernick, Tony Trischka, Kenny Kosek and John Miller to form Country Cooking. During the four years that Country Cooking was together, the group recorded two influential albums, Country Cooking: 14 Bluegrass Instrumentals and Barrel of Fun and accompanied mandolinist Frank Wakefield on a third album. Barenberg also played on a number of Trischka’s solo albums throughout the 1970’s.
After Country Cooking disbanded in 1975, Barenberg temporarily switched to electric guitar and performed with a jazz-rock band, Carried Away. In 1977 he moved to New York and, together with Trischka, Miller, and fiddler Matt Glaser, formed the eclectic string band, Heartlands. Heartlands backed Barenberg on many of the cuts on Cowboy Calypso.
Moving to Boston in 1979, he joined Glaser and fiddler/mandolinist Jay Ungar in the triple-fiddle band Fiddle Fever, recording two albums with the group. Fiddle Fever’s recording of “Ashokan Farewell” was later used as the centerpiece for the soundtrack to Ken Burns’ celebrated documentary, The Civil War. Barenberg played on the soundtracks for several other Burns’ films as well, including The Brooklyn Bridge, The Shakers and Huey Long. During this time, he also worked with Glaser and mandolinist Andy Statman in the experimental bluegrass-jazz band Laughing Hands. Barenberg recorded his second solo album, Behind the Melodies, in 1983. That album, along with his appearance on Jerry Douglas’s 1982 release, Fluxedo, marked the beginnings of an ongoing series of collaborations between the two musicians. While in Boston, Barenberg was also active in the vibrant contradance scene, playing frequently for dances. He played on fiddler Rodney Miller’s recording, Airplang, which was seminal to the development of contradance music in the late 80’s and 90’s. A number of Barenberg’s own tunes have since become popular standards in the contradance repertoire.
Barenberg moved to Nashville in 1986 and has lived there since. Along with Douglas, he worked for several years accompanying Irish singer, Maura O’Connell, and in 1988 recorded his third solo album, Moving Pictures, another beautiful collection of original instrumentals featuring Douglas, Meyer, banjoist Bela Fleck, and fiddlers Mark O’Connor and Stuart Duncan, among others. The previously mentioned trio with Douglas and Meyer, active throughout the 1990’s, was a highly original ensemble that further reshaped the direction of acoustic music. Their popular 1993 recording, Skip, Hop & Wobble, has been extremely influential with the a new generation of acoustic instrumentalists. In 1996 Barenberg worked with Douglas, fiddler Darol Anger and Los Angeles-based music producer Snuffy Walden to create the soundtrack for Homecoming, a film starring Anne Bancroft.
Barenberg has performed and recorded with many other top acoustic and country music artists including Randy Travis, Emmy Lou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, Tim O’Brien, Sam Bush, Paul Brady, Darryl Scott, Joan Osborne, Bryan Sutton, Aly Bain, Phil Cunningham, Eddi Reader, Natalie McMaster and Sharon Shannon. Many of these musical associations came about through his ongoing work on The Transatlantic Sessions, a series of television shows produced in Scotland beginning in 1994 that bring together top acoustic musicians from the British Isles and the United States for collaborative performances. The fourth and most recent group of Transatlantic Sessions was filmed in March 2009.

Known widely as an exceptional teacher and author of instructional materials, Barenberg is regularly in demand at workshops and music camps throughout the country. He has been on staff at the Telluride and Rocky Grass Academies in Colorado, Steve Kaufman's camp in Tennessee, The Puget Sound Guitar Workshop in Washington, Augusta Heritage in West Virginia, Pinewoods in Massachusetts, and Fiddle and Dance at Ashokan in New York state.
Barenberg currently freelances in Nashville and performs with his own group--The Russ Barenberg Quartet. His 2007 release on Compass Records is described well by music writer Jon Weisberger:  “…while ensemble interplay is the foundation of When at Last, its heart and soul ultimately is to be found in Barenberg’s tunes—some dating back to the early 90s, others composed shortly before recording began—and in his glistening playing. Few guitarists so perfectly blend a mastery of roots music traditions with melodic originality, or so finely balance muscularity with delicacy, and each moment of the album is shaped by these artistic dualities…”

EDGAR MEYER

Edgar Meyer (born November 24, 1960) is a prominent contemporary bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. Meyer has worked as a session musician in Nashville, part of various chamber groups, a composer, and an arranger. His collaborators have spanned a wide range of musical styles and talents; among them are Joshua Bell, Yo-Yo Ma, Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Sam Bush, James Taylor, Chris Thile, Mike Marshall, Mark O'Connor, Alison Krauss, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and the trio Nickel Creek.

Meyer grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He learned to play the double bass from his father, the late Edgar Meyer, Sr., who directed the string orchestra program for the local public school system. Meyer later went on to Indiana University to study with Stuart Sankey.
Meyer is noted for achieving virtuosity on an instrument of unusual technical difficulty. Following in the footsteps of other bass players like Gary Karr and Mark Bernat before him, he has tried a hand at performing music originally composed for other instruments, such as Bach's unaccompanied cello suites.
Meyer has also composed a number of works, including two double bass concertos, a string quintet, a double concerto for bass and cello, and a violin concerto in 1999 composed specifically for Hilary Hahn.
In 2000, he won the Avery Fisher Prize, given once every few years to classical instrumentalists for outstanding achievement. In 2002, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. Meyer's collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O'Connor on the widely acclaimed Sony Classical disc Appalachia Waltz reached the top of the United States pop charts for 16 weeks when it was released. Meyer collaborated again with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O'Connor on Appalachian Journey, that earned a Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album.
On Meyer's self-titled 2006 Sony Classical release, he performs accompanied only by himself on a wide variety of instruments besides his usual piano and double bass, including guitar, banjo, viola da gamba, mandolin and dobro.
Meyer is Adjunct Associate Professor of Double Bass at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music, as well as at the Curtis Institute.

Sources: Russ Barenberg.com and Wikipedia.