‘Education never stops’ - Joshua Bell’s life lessons

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I feel so lucky to have grown up just down the road from the legendary Josef Gingold. When he took me on as a twelve-year-old, I’d never know quite what to expect during our violin lessons. Besides offering practical and musical advice, and demonstrating his ‘old-world’ sense of sound and style on his Stradivari, he would also mesmerise me with stories of his encounters with Ysaÿe, Toscanini and Kreisler. Sometimes he’d take out a Beethoven string quartet for me to sightread while he filled in the other three parts by memory, or he’d take me down the hall to meet Menahem Pressler or János Starker and get their perspective on a particular musical idea. How inspiring!…