#mccarter music

McCarter is excited to welcome two international music superstars this week: violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Ludovico Einaudi! Read this note from Special Programming Director Bill Lockwood about when he first discovered each of these musicians and their upcoming visits to Princeton.

I first heard Joshua Bell when he was a teenager playing at Carnegie Hall, which is probably longer than either of us cares to remember. But even then, everybody knew he was destined to reach the heights. His first McCarter appearance was in 1991 and luckily for us he has remained loyal to our audiences ever since, returning regularly to our stage, most recently in 2013 (footnote: for several years, his partner at the keyboard was Jeremy Denk, who comes to McCarter this season in a solo recital on May 1). At this point, there is very little I can say about Josh that has not already said many times over and far more eloquently. Suffice it to say that not since the heyday of Itzhak Perlman has any American violinist so captured the attention of not just the music audience, but of the public at large, in much the same fashion as Lang Lang and Yo-Yo Ma. Soloist? Chamber musician? Recording artist? TV star? He’s done and continues to do it all, including conducting, where he finishes his tenure this season as music director of London’s Academy of St Martin in the Fields (succeeding the legendary Sir Neville Marriner). His recital program with pianist Alessio Bax is vintage Bell: Mendelssohn, Grieg (how often do we hear his sonatas?) and Brahms.

Ludovico Enaudi may not be as well-known yet  in the U.S. as Josh, but his “cult” is ever-growing (although it may never reach the level of his new-age superstardom in the U.K., where he is the biggest streamed classical artist ever, with two million monthly listeners on Spotify). When I first discovered him for myself last year at NYU’s Skirball Center, his two concerts were both SRO (as was his only New York concert earlier this week at the Beacon Theatre). How to describe him? Enaudi is basically a pianist, but his style is informed by minimalist, ambient, world, and rock elements, incorporating guitar, electronics, and percussion—talk about crossing genres. Each part of his music has a precise relation to the others and the elements naturally harmonize acoustic, electric, and electronic sounds. He puts it this way: “If it wasn’t music, it would be a map of thoughts—points, lines, shapes, fragments of an ongoing flow.” And while you think you’ve never heard Enaudi’s music, you have: as part of twenty film scores and soundtracks (including Black Swan); or as part of the soundscape for TV commercials from Nissan, American Airlines, Nike, and even the NBA finals.

- William W. Lockwood, Jr.,McCarter Special Programming Director

For tickets and more information about Joshua Bell and Ludovico Einaudi, visit mccarter.org