Joshua Bell makes about $32 for 45 minute "show"

[Robert]

Have a read - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

This is interesting.

In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, and he made about $32 for playing.

The man was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest classical musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $200 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.

[mainestratman]

The story was incredible, but since I have nowhere to go, I'm listening to the performance... and am completely blown away.

[Ro3b]

That's a great piece. It won Gene Weingarten the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature writing.

Morning rush hour at L'Enfant Plaza is kind of a worst-case spot for any kind of busking. It's in what I think of as the Soviet quarter of DC -- lots of ghastly soul-crushing sixties-era concrete architecture and unhappy people in suits running around. It would have been interesting to repeat the experiment at the Navy Memorial Station at lunchtime.

[tjcurtin1]

If you do watch this, the fascinating thing is that the only group who consistently wanted to stop and listen were children... who were all dragged off by their accompanying adult!

EDIT: I meant, listen to it... NPR did a great radio piece on this with Bell and the Post reporter, and it was also on their website along with the video footage they made with a hidden camera. There's also a great bit with the shoe-shine lady who called the transit police on him - she grudgingly admits that she felt a bit bad about it "because he was really good".

[mars2010]

this kind of story shows why anyone who puts their heart and soul into being an artist and creating something enjoyable is a cultural genius. too many people just create angst and red tape for others to deal with, and call it a career/job. also look at what the media feeds us as 'music'. most pop music is more like commercials for product placement, and enough dumb people buy into it so they can be hip/cool with their peers. i guess it also shows that people will buy 'entertainment' based on a lot of factors. As musicians/artists it's difficult to measure success, because money/sales/popularity has a lot to do with how hard it's pushed into the mainstream public consious. if one person likes it, it could be a masterpiece, if a million people like it, it still might suck...

[syo]

Robert, that article and video made my weekend. Thanks!

My wife is a concert violinist so violin music is a big part of my life. To have heard Bell in that context would have been mind blowing. What a fantastic experiment and a reminder to take the time to appreciate beauty wherever we find it. I forget that myself all too often these days.

[Tone2TheBone]

My daughter loves Joshua Bell. She likes his collaborations with Anoushka Shankar. He's a great inspiration to an aspiring violinist. :applause

[Bloozcat]

That was a spectacular piece!

It is a strange phenomenon to watch as people rush by the street musicians. Maybe it's because I've played instruments since I was 8 years old that when I hear someone who is really talented I always want to stop to listen. It's my wife who always acts like the adults with children depicted in the article; always impatiently trying to usher me away as though we had someplace so important to be that even lingering for a few precious moments might somehow ruin the whole day. And the really stange thing about this is that it usually happens when we're on vacation with a lot of leisure time.

I guess some people just don't understand the spontaneous joy of happening upon something so rare and unexpected. Serendipitous moments like these are life's little gifts.