Bell, Mendelssohn and Beethoven

Sunday, April 16 at 8 p.m.

The Kravis Center for the Performing Arts

Grammy-winner Joshua Bell, one of the most celebrated violinists of his era, joins Maestro Gerard Schwarz and Palm Beach Symphony to perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, arguably one of the masterworks of violin virtuosity and one to which Bell has added a cadenza of his own composition which he will perform.  The concert opens with the Symphony performing Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture (“Fingals’ Cave”) and itsstirring musical summoning of nature’s drama and beauty found along the Scottish coast. The evening culminates with the Symphony performing Beethoven’s landmark Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major (“Eroica”) that launched his heroic period and broke new ground by creating a symphony composed like none ever before.

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The New York Times noted, “Mr. Bell doesn’t stand in anyone’s shadow,” and with a career spanning four decades, Bell has performed with virtually every major orchestra in the world and continues to maintain engagements as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor and Music Director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Bell’s highlights in the 2021-22 season include leading the Academy of St Martin in the Fields at the 2021 BBC Proms, throughout Europe and the U.S. on tour; returning with the Philadelphia Orchestra for a play/conduct program, to the Verbier Festival, the Minnesota Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic; and tours with the Israel Philharmonic and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra as soloist. As an exclusive Sony Classical artist, Bell has recorded more than 40 albums garnering GRAMMY®, Mercury®, Gramophone and OPUS KLASSIK awards. Bell has been named 2010 “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America, a 2007 “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, nominated for six GRAMMY® awards in addition to his win for “Best Classical Instrumental Solo” and received the 2007 Avery Fisher Prize. He has also received the 2003 Indiana Governor’s Arts Award and a 1991 Distinguished Alumni Service Award from the Jacobs School of Music. In 2000, he was named an “Indiana Living Legend.”