Passion and a modest master
It was a lucky move for director Francois Girard when he asked Joshua Bell to play for the film The Red Violin. But not because Bell is such a superb violinist and thus something of a coup for the film-maker.
'It was lucky because I was the same height and build as Jason Flemyng [playing the virtuoso-composer Frederick Pope],' says Bell of the much-praised film which traces the 300-year history of a violin.
'Dressed up, I looked almost exactly like him. You see my hands in the face, my back.' This is typical Bell: charming, modest, self-effacing, still rather awed by where he finds himself, and into anything going. He is uncomplaining about the fact that as he recorded, the film was being cut and the music was constantly changed. The American loved hanging out on the set with the film's stars Carlo Cecchi, Greta Scacchi and Samuel L Jackson, and going to the film festivals. 'I felt like I was in the movies for a while. It was exciting.' He not only served as artistic adviser, body double and the performing artist responsible for all on-screen violin sounds (made, for the record, on his own 1732 Antonio Stradivari, not on one of the six red violins made as working props for the film), but also struck up a good working relationship with contemporary composer John Corigliano that continued after the film.
Bell works a lot with living composers though often finds that difficult. 'There is so much new music I've found I couldn't relate to. I played the classics growing up and every note had its place and meant something. That's what I expect out of music. A lot of the avant-garde music didn't speak to me like that. Corigliano appealed because he has such strong form in his music.' Also an acclaimed interpreter of Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, Bell will play Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto with the Hong Kong Philharmonic tonight and tomorrow conducted by Alexander Lazarev. It's a piece - 'a real warhorse, exhausting, demanding, very emotional and exciting' - that he has played since he was 13.
'Each time I look at it in a different way. You can spend a lifetime trying to improve a piece. The way I play it now is very different from the way I played it as a teenager.' It all started with rubber bands. When he was three and living in Bloomington, Indiana, Bell would string the bands across dresser drawer handles and play tunes he had heard his mother play on the piano.
'By opening the drawers to different degrees, I could make them play at different pitches,' he said.
It obviously helps if you grow up with parents who are psychologists and keen amateur musicians. They cottoned on quickly, chose a violin for him when he was four and made playing it a game. 'I did like the challenge of it,' he said. His mother encouraged daily practice and when young Bell was 11 he started studying with the late Josef Gingold, renowned violinist and teacher at Indiana University's acclaimed school of music.
'He was like a grandfather to me,' Bell remembers fondly. 'In arts, having the right kind of mentor is just like having a parent, they set your musical values and how you approach your career. Gingold taught me his love of music.
'He was not involved in careers at all. In fact, he had no idea of the ins and outs of what goes on today to make a solo career. But he was just such an inspiration. The joy of music and of the violin that he felt and exuded was incredible.' At 12, Bell 'started taking music seriously'. At 14, the protege won the Seventeen Magazine-General Motors competition and made a sensational debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Riccardo Mutti. His career soared. Yet Bell avoided doing many competitions or allowing himself to be pushed too far too fast. 'I was leading this double life. At college, which I eventually left a couple of years early, and in concerts. But I had a balanced life throughout my teens. I wasn't the typical prodigy who tours too much and doesn't have a life.' By 19, he had a contract with Decca. He insists he was always taking things slowly, at his own pace, though he still finds it hard to turn projects down.
He also avoided the perils of prodigy-hood by maintaining a balanced life: sports (he was an Indiana tennis champion at aged 10), bowling, ace poker player and heavily into computer games - all that musical dexterity and focus helps when playing Duke Nukem. He also studies physics in his spare time.
Bell now lives in New York unostentatiously with girlfriend and fellow violinist Lisa Matricardi in Manhattan, a few blocks from the Empire State Building, an area he chose partly to avoid the music crowd.
It's a continuation of the comfortable, sound base that has encouraged such a breadth of interests. He appears in a concert scene in Fifty Violins, Meryl Streep's new film, has developed a Gershwin programme with composer and producer John Williams, set up his own chamber music mini-series and has begun performing his own cadenzas, or solo flourishes, in concertos.
'I really enjoy writing and my dream would be to write a piece of music. So far I've just fooled around with it,' he said.
He doesn't grandstand and doesn't court media coverage so much as have fun with it. In recent years he's featured in People magazine, turned up on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and appeared in a music video. It's taken him from prodigy to heartthrob. He's a Generation X sex symbol, his hunkish CD covers drawing crowds of female fans. That had its drawbacks.
'It took several years to get people over the thought I was a promotional flash in the pan and to earn their respect.
'I wouldn't say I'm not ambitious. A little more fame would be OK, not a lot, just a little.' His flawless intonation, strong rhythmic control and acclaimed string tone are likely to bring him just that. But Bell is still growing in technical skills fuelled by his wide musical interests.
He records quite often now, from Gershwin's Fantasy for Sony Classical to Short Trip Home with friend bassist Edgar Meyer and legendary bluegrass musicians Sam Bush and Mike Marshall.
Recording is not, however, his favourite thing. 'I never listen to my old recordings. It's painful. It's the way records are done, it's the permanence, it's a lot of things. You do it over and over again.
'I like just shooting for it in a performance. I really love the performance atmosphere, the risk-taking.' Joshua Bell. Cultural Centre Concert Hall. Today and tomorrow, 8pm. $120-$350. Call Urbtix 2734 9009.
The arts page is edited by Amanda Watson. Fax: 2562 2485;
