On such a cold and rainy evening, I could not think of a better place to be than in Joshua Bell’s recently completed and gorgeous apartment. I arrived about 20 minutes late into the champagne reception hour, and embarked on mixing with many familiar faces including Renée Fleming and Glenn Close. Clutching a small birthday present for the Virtuoso in my hand, I was trying to scramble through a crowd of about 150 people in order to capture Kipton Cronkite’s attention, who was chatting with several people simultaneously. Joshua celebrated his real birthday on Tuesday, and with some effort I managed to bestow my gift on Kipton who promised to pass it on to the birthday boy.
My friend Candice and I sneaked around the rooftop terrace (check out the view on the photo), and at about 9 pm I was lucky to find a spare seat facing the curtains that were about to reveal the star of the soirée. Joshua spoke about his choice of pieces that he was going to play with the help of his recital partner Simon Mulligan. I enjoyed listening to the first two compositions, the Ravel and the Massenet. The concert ran for about 40 minutes, and ended with two popular pieces from Bernstein’s “West Side Story”. Everyone stood and cheered, but I had the strong impression that the majority were particularly inspired by the last two renditions. Contrary to my tastes…
Afterwards, as the crowd was dispersing, I chatted to Joshua’s lovely mother Shirley, who took me on a short guided tour of the photographs hanging on the walls, and the Grammy Award sitting near the piano. I then drank a final glass of champagne with Candice, and jumped into a cab for my late evening rendezvous at Doubles…
