PHILADELPHIA, Pa., April 6 /PRN/ -- 14 year-old violinist Joshua Bell, winner of the first Seventeen Magazine/General Motors National Concerto Competition will become the youngest soloist ever to appear with The Philadelphia Orchestra on subscription series concerts. Bell was also the youngest finalist in the competition held at the beginning of March in Rochester, N.Y., winning the grand prize over 36 other young instrumentalists, pianists, flutists and violinists. Each of the three finalists received $5,000, and the grand prize winner received the opportunity to perform with The Philadelphia Orchestra. Bell will perform the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 3 (K. 216) at the opening concerts of The Philadelphia Orchestra 1982-1983 season next Sept. 24, 25 and 28 with Music Director Riccardo Muti conducting.
Joshua Bell is a freshman at Bloomington High School North in Bloomington, Ind. He began violin study at the age of five. Currently he is a music student at Indiana University as well as a high school student. He was the 1981 grand prize winner at the American String Teachers National Solo Competition and was awarded a study grant for next summer with violinist Henryk Szeryng in Switzerland.
The Seventeen Magazine and General Motors National Concerto Competition is designed to recognize and encourage America's young artists on a national scale. The competition is designed to augment the many local and regional award opportunities with a substantial monetary incentive and significant national identification as an important step for careers for deserving young artists. The event drew 36 tape audition winners, 12 each in piano, flute and violin. One finalist was chosen in each instrumental category, and the three artists appeared with David Effron and the Eastman Philharmonia before a panel of judges. The panel consisted of pianists Fernardo Laires and Eugene List, Harold Schonberg of the New York Times, concert violinists Eudice Shapiro and Charles Treger, conductor and Music Program Director of The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Franz Bibo, flutists Albert Tipton and Carol Wincenc and American composer Michael Colgrass. William Smith, associate conductor of The Philadelphia Orchestra attended the finals as an observer. The competition is open to young men and women who are United States citizens studying with a music instructor and in grades 9, 10, 11 or 12.
Joshua Bell performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto for the finals. He played the same work as well as the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto for Riccardo Muti at the Academy of Music in mid-March with piano accompaniment to cement The Philadelphia Orchestra guest appearances.
Joshua Bell
Fourteen-year-old Joshua Bell is the grand prize winner of the first annual Seventeen Magazine & General Motors National Concerto Competition. A freshman at Bloomington High School North in Bloomington, Ind., Bell is also a student at Indiana University School of Music where he studies with violinist Josef Gingold. He spent two summers at the Meadowmount School in New York where he studied with Ivan Galamian and, this summer, will spend several weeks in Switzerland studying with Henryk Szeryng after having been named the grand prize winner in the 1981 American String Teachers Association National Solo Competition. He was also the first prize winner at the sixth annual Julius Stulberg String Auditions in Michigan in 1981 and was a national winner in the Stillman-Kelley Scholarship competition, sponsored by the National Federation of Music Clubs. Bell made his debut as a soloist in 1975 at the age of seven with the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra and has also performed with the Indiana University School of Music Orchestra, the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony, the Eastman Philharmonia and the Cape Cod Conservatory String Ensemble. He has given numerous solo recitals in Indiana and Illinois, including two at Indiana University.
In addition to the violin, Bell is an accomplished computer and pin-ball wizard and an outstanding young tennis competitor. He is a past national finalist at the Target Tennis Tournament, a special tournament for junior boys held annually in Boston.