Joshua Bell with Pianist Peter Dugan
With a career spanning almost four decades, GRAMMY® Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell is one of the most celebrated artists of his era. Bell has performed with virtually every major orchestra, and maintains engagements as a soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, conductor and as the Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.
Bell’s recent highlights include an international tour of his newly-commissioned project, The Elements, featuring works by renowned living composers. The work received its premiere performances with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Hong Kong Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Seattle Symphony. Bell released his Butterfly Lovers album on Sony Classical, led the Academy of St Martin in the Fields on tour in Australia and throughout the United States, and played a Benefit Concert for Ukraine with conductor Dalia Stasevska and the INSO-Lviv Symphony Orchestra in Warsaw, Poland.
Bell has been nominated for six GRAMMY® awards, was named “Instrumentalist of the Year” by Musical America, deemed a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, received the Avery Fisher Prize, and was named an “Indiana Living Legend” in 2000. He has performed for three American presidents and the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Bell also participated in President Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ mission to Cuba on an Emmy-nominated PBS Live from Lincoln Center special; Joshua Bell: Seasons of Cuba, celebrating renewed cultural diplomacy between Cuba and the United States.
Pianist Peter Dugan, praised by the Los Angeles Times as “stunning” and the SF Chronicle as “fearlessly athletic” after his debut with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, is the host of NPR’s From the Top. He has performed globally, including debuts at Wigmore Hall and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Dugan’s versatile talent spans classical, jazz, and pop, leading to collaborations with Itzhak Perlman, Renee Fleming, and Glenn Close. His duo with violinist Charles Yang was dubbed a “classical-meets-rockstar duo” by the Wall Street Journal. A Juilliard graduate and Yamaha Artist, Dugan’s community outreach includes Operation Superpower, a superhero opera for children. He resides in New York City with his wife, mezzo-soprano Kara Dugan, and teaches at Juilliard.
