Joshua Bell: Hailed by peers, ignored on street

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Joshua Bell is one of the classical music world's iconic figures, but fame didn't stop the Grammy-Award winning violinist's music from falling on deaf ears at a subway stop in Washington.

Bell, 39, received the most coveted prize in classical music -- the Avery Fisher prize -- on Tuesday, two days after The Washington Post revealed that he had failed to draw even a tiny crowd while performing in an anonymous setting.

The boyish-looking Bell swapped his formal concert garb for jeans, a T-shirt and a baseball cap to play six classical pieces outside a Metro station in a test of perception and public taste conducted by the Post.

Bell says the results after 43 minutes during morning rush hour -- $32.17 and only one of 1,097 people who passed by recognizing him -- were more surprising than being asked to do the stunt in the first place.

"I was quite nervous and it was a strange experience being ignored," Bell, a former child prodigy who attracts a young following and commands ticket prices of $100 or more at his concerts, told Reuters on Wednesday.

Playing a violin handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari and reported to cost around $3.5 million, Bell said he expected that rush-hour commuters might not be open to listening to music "or experiencing art."

"I expected that, but it was still almost hurtful sometimes when somebody just walked by when I really did try to play my best," he said. "It was difficult to see."

Here's more about the experiment:

Nothing. Or very little -- $32 in exchange for 43 minutes of music, which is only bad if you're Joshua Bell. And aside from the lack of monetary compensation, very little attention from adults (click thru here for a few must-see videos of Bell playing in context). Who listened? According to the article, only the children, with a few exceptions:

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

Why the kids? Partly because they know beauty in their hearts and not in their analytic brains. Partly because they're not rushing somewhere like all the adults (even if they're in tow -- young children don't rush anywhere they don't want to go). The kids were listening because that's what kids do. They listen and observe with an intensity that only the most talented and highly-trained professional ethnographers can muster. In the face of such beauty and mastery, how could they not spend these precious moments of life soaking in the music?