Quotes by Joshua Bell

“You become what the composer asks you to become.”

“Coming to a university town is always nice. Its a nice change from going to the sort of major, capital cities.”

“I really like meeting students.”

“The question is figuring out the emotions of the composer, where hes coming from, and then tapping into it the same way an actor would in approaching a role.”

“It really helps to play with someone like him whos very spontaneous and always trying new things in the concerts. You have to always be aware of what the other person is doing and play off of that.”

I hope I will always have the chance to play the violin.

We live in a very chaotic world that sometimes we - it just seems like a mess. One of the reasons why we listen to music, and to great classical music in particular, is that everything is in an order and in a place and has a beauty that you see in nature, that you see and that people look for when they look for God.

I always have loved the Stradivarius. My teacher, Josef Gingold, he had a Stradivarius. As a treat, he would put it under my chin and let me play a few notes, and I remember that feeling of the overtones, the complexity of the sound. Its like a great wine.

My teacher, Josef Gingold, a student of the French school, always loved the music of Saint-Saens and Henri Vieuxtemps and all the French repertoire.

Good conductors know when to let an orchestra lead itself. Ninety percent of what a conductor does comes in the rehearsal - the vision, the structure, the architecture.

The real architecture happens within the works themselves, and that was done by the composer. Thats where the real skill is. In putting together a program, youre more a curator, but thats important as well. And then the interpreting of it is where our big job is.

Stradivarius, in particular, was the most amazing craftsman and one of the great artists and scientists that ever lived because he figured out something with the sound and the science of acoustics that we still dont understand it completely.

My whole life, Ive been watching conductors. I was 7 the first time I played with a conductor. Seeing the ones that do it well, its an amazing thing.

I want to do everything. Thats my problem. Life is short, and I hate the idea of turning down anything. You never know what interesting experience might happen.

The symphonies are the things that, as a soloist, Ive not gotten to play. I used to travel the world playing concertos, and then I would sit and listen to the symphony.

For some reason I cant explain, artist and musicians tend to look younger than our age. Being in music, you need this youthful sense of discovery and wonder for what youre doing and keep your imagination open. Thats a youthful way of looking at life and I think that reflects in how you age.

I think music should be the basis of an education, not just something you do once a week.