Joshua Bell

Diep Tran: Tell me about your latest album, 'At Home with Friends.' What was the recording process like?

Joshua Bell: Basically it's an album of collaborations with various friends that I've made over the years in music from many different genres and I decided to put them all together into one CD. I have on the album Sting, Chris Botti, Josh Groban, and Regina Spektor. I have a lot of interesting friends and I decided to put them together into one album.

DT: The press release talked about your renovating your house to accommodate that kind of musical collaboration?

JB: The title of the album is 'At Home with Friends.' What I like to do in New York, in my house, is to have house concerts where I invite people over – different kinds of musicians and various people – and to have casual concerts in the hall, which is a fun thing to do. And I actually built my house in Manhattan from scratch, I did renovations and it took three and a half years to build. I like to have these sorts of soirees in my house and the album is supposed to reflect that kind of concept.

DT: Was the home concert venue always something you had in mind?

JB: I've been doing this for some years in my old place as well, sort of casually. I just finished my play and my dream has been to have a regular salon-type series in my home that builds a reputation as something really fun to go to in New York and we'll see how that goes.

DT: Is the album recorded from your home?

JB: The title is just metaphorical. The recording was done in various studios, mostly in New York and in other places. With Sting, I went out to Malibu to record.

DT: How did you go about choosing the songs for the album?

JB: Some of them are things that I've done in the past. For instance, Kristin Chenoweth – who is a wonderful actress and singer, she was my girlfriend at one time – many years ago, during 2001-2002, we did this song, 'My Funny Valentine,' we did a version of that for a TV special. We had that already arranged and done so this album was a good place to finally put something like that. In other cases, I just went to each of the artist, 'Do you have something in mind that would work with the violin?' and we came up with the idea and put that together.

DT: In one of the tracks on the album you get to duet with Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. How was that experience?

JB: That was actually coincidental that I heard about this new technology where they are able to extract his playing from a record, actually a record that he did with violin which I thought was amazing. They could extract his playing digitally. They demonstrated it for me and it sounded like Rachmaninoff was in the room. And so this was during the time I was making this record so I thought, 'Hey, let's put him on the album even if he probably doesn't know it,' and he became one of my friends. So it was sort of a little tongue-in-cheek and it turned out to be an interesting experience for me, musically, to play with Rachmaninoff was pretty cool.

DT: Did you have to change your way of playing to accommodate the record?

JB: Of course I was stuck with the way he played; there was no changing that since it was already done. But with that kind of music, there's plenty of room for individual expression and actually if you listen to mine next to the original record, it sounds completely different. So it wasn't too difficult.

DT: Which track did you enjoy doing most?

JB: Doing 'Eleanor Rigby,' which was with somebody I just met in Las Vegas by chance. Some friends took me to hear this guy Frankie Moreno who is a sort of rock pianist. I heard him in Vegas and thought he was really talented and I said, 'Why don't you go on the album?' I always wanted to do a Beatles song and with 'Eleanor Rigby' we just started improvising and I came up with this arrangement. I enjoyed the composing part and the arranging, and 'Eleanor Rigby' was one that I really did myself so for me that was a lot of fun.

DT: And everybody loves a Beatles homage.

JB: Yeah, and it's been done so many times and 'Eleanor Rigby,' coming up with a version, a very unique take on it, I tried to bring out the sort of classical feel of 'Eleanor Rigby.' Trying to make it into a classical piece was a real challenge for me.

DT: What's kind of music do you enjoy playing most?

JB: Music is music. There's a lot of things in common among all the music things. Obviously classical music--the great classical music like Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart--obviously that is my life. This is what I live for. But when I get to do things like play with Tiempo Libre in a latin band or Edgar Meyer in the bluegrass band, I learn a lot from them, their approach to improvisation and rhythm is incredible. And I bring some of that back to my classical playing for sure.

DT: What are your upcoming plans in terms of touring or upcoming albums?

JB: I'm basically touring all the time. I'm on my way next week to Moscow, Stockholm, Vienna, and Berlin, all kinds of places. I'm playing at the White House in November, which I'm looking forward to. I played for President Obama once before in February which is really cool and exciting. I get to meet him again. And try to think up my next record, which I'm not sure what that will be yet.

DT: So which is better, playing for the President or winning a Grammy?

JB: I think playing for Obama was better. I mean getting awards are nice but I find meeting the president was pretty cool and definitely a humbling experience.

DT: Is he as cool in real life?

JB: He seemed very cool, yeah. I didn't spend a lot of time with him and I hope to exchange more words with him this time, but we'll see. But just his presence is very…yeah. He had just won the election when I first met him and it was on Lincoln's birthday, his 200th birthday and a lot of significance within that day and it was really neat. He seems like a real person's man.

DT: You get a lot of accoladessuch as 'World's Greatest Violinist' and 'plays like a God,' how do you respond to that kind of praise?

JB: I think in order to be in this business, you have to be your own worst critic anyway. When someone says something like that, I definitely know better, I know it's not true. I'm never really happy with the way I play. But that keeps me going back, it keeps me practicing. When someone says something like 'the greatest violinist,' it doesn't mean anything. It's music, it's a subjective thing. All I have to do is look on the internet, look up my name and see how many dozens of people hate my playing. Takes me right back down.

DT: Do you do that often?

JB: No, I don't. I try not to. The way the internet works now, the way people write on the internet ruthlessly, it's not a good thing to look myself up.

DT: Do you ever look yourself up on Wikipedia?

JB: You know, I should check that more regularly. I had one crazy woman that actually believed she's my wife. She apparently tried to change Wikipedia to reflect that. So I should make sure that I'm not her husband but no, I don't do that often.

DT: Well, I believe that was all of the time I was allowed for you, thank you for sitting down with me. And good luck on your touring.

JB: Thank you very much, thanks for talking with me.