Live From Lincoln Center Presents 'Joshua Bell with Friends At the Penthouse' To Feature Chenoweth, Gunn, Hamlisch and More 1/21

Tune in to PBS on Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 8:00p.m.* for Live From Lincoln Center's telecast of violin favorite Joshua Bell with friends from Lincoln Center's intimate Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse. Included on the program will be performances of My Funny Valentine with Emmy and Tony Award-winner Kristen Chenoweth, O, Cease Thy Singing, Maiden Fair with acclaimed baritone Nathan Gunn, I'll Take Manhattan with the incomparable pianist/composer Marvin Hamlisch, and Eleanor Rigby with popular musician Frankie Moreno.

For over two decades, Joshua Bell has enchanted audiences worldwide with his breathtaking playing and tone of rare opulence. Today, he is equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestra leader. His restless curiosity and multifaceted musical interests have taken him in exciting new directions and have earned him the rare title of "classical music superstar." Best known for performing the Oscar-winning soundtrack of John Corigliano's The Red Violin and whose latest Sony/BMG Classics CD release of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons debuted at #1 on the Billboard Classical Music Chart, he recently released Joshua Bell: At Home with Friends and was last featured on Live From Lincoln Center as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival in August. He was featured on the soundtrack of the Paramount Vantage film Defiance, directed by Edward Zwick and starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber. Bell has made acclaimed Sony Classical recordings of the concertos of Beethoven and Mendelssohn (both featuring his own cadenzas), Sibelius and Goldmark, and the Grammy Award-winning Nicholas Maw concerto. The success of his Grammy-nominated Gershwin Fantasy-which premiered a new work for violin and orchestra, based on themes from Porgy and Bess--led to a Grammy-nominated all-Bernstein recording that included the composer's Serenade and the premiere of West Side Story Suite. He currently serves on the artist committee of the Kennedy Center Honors and plays the 1713 Gibson ex Huberman Stradivarius.

Live From Lincoln Center is in its 34th broadcast season. The series has received 13 Emmy Awards, most recently for the broadcast of New York City Opera's production of Madama Butterfly. Produced by Lincoln Center's John Goberman, this series has made the world's greatest artists on Lincoln Center's renowned stages accessible to home viewers in virtually every corner of the United States. It remains the only series of live fine arts performances on American television today.

Live From Lincoln Center is made possible by a major grant from MetLife.

Photo credit: Walter McBride

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