tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with joshua bell, one of the more acclaimed well in this spin he collaborates with a wide range of musicians and singers, including placido domingo and winston marsalis. as this is christmas eve, we have a gift for you from joshua bell who will perform "i'll be home for christmas ." our conversation and performance from joshua bell coming up right now. ♪

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: acclaimed violinist and grammy winner joshua bell made his hunting gear hall debut at 17. he has performed with the world's top organist is -- top orchestras. he is three quartered more than that she has recorded more than 30 albums and his latest cd is

called "is cool gifts." -- "musical gifts." he will close our show tonight with "i'll be home for christmas." we hung out a few times over the years but this is your first time performing so thank you for this. you been good? >> i've been very good. tavis: what took you so long to finally do a christmas-themed cd if you love this type of year -- this time of your smudge. >> and i never thought i would do a christmas album. i did one a couple of years ago with chris bodie and kristin chenoweth and i really enjoyed making these arrangements that we know so well and playing on them and doing some unusual types of things.

my mother is jewish so i grew up celebrating everything this time of year. it is an unusual christmas album, but i loved making it. tavis: can you mix all of those traditions. check number 15 is called " holiday confusion." >> all of these friends i've known and some people that i've always wanted to play with, like chicory a, but -- like chick korea -- like chick correa. confusion" has this mixed background then these comedians like victor borge and mixing in "how the negev" with christmas songs that might offend a couple of people. [laughter] and then the idea the whole album is the joy of making music and that is what i did at home this christmas time. when i was growing up, we all

played music and it is a submission. this: i find myself asking question over the years to those who have put his or her talents to a christmas project. but you are a little different because you are playing the violin. the approach doing christmas music playing the instrument that you play. how does a violinist approach on?ing his own -- treatment traditional christmas stuff traditional christmas stuff? >> that is the fun part. in each case, it is a different thing. i had my wish list. many responded very positively. instance, hefor said, so, what are we going to do?

i left it in the hands of each of them to choose a song. chose "greensleeves," which is sort of christmas- related. he wrote a jazz version of it. it includes the violin is a duet. it is difficult to make say violin and voice. it's always a challenge. the violin is so much of a singing instrument. i love the violin and voice together. it is a fun art of the process to make a violent not just an accompaniment figure because we all know that singing a song is the voice as the center of attention. since it is my album, i want to make the violin take a leading role.- a co-leading tavis: when you have people singing and you are playing it is really your project and you are playing the violin.

but how does the violin take center stage? and i couldn't wait to see you and frankie rehearse because i wanted to see how that balance is out. it does quite nicely. >> it is a give-and-take. it is just like a classical music. you don't want to plant top of them all the time. it is like chamber music. frankie reynaud -- frankie , i had met frankie in las vegas. some musician friends said you have to go here this pianist at this club, this bar. i heard him playing incredibly virtuawsuit -- incredibly osic rock music. one of the most talented people i know, great harmonica player, drummer -- she does everything. -- he andlly need to

i sat down for "i'll be home for christmas," just like we did for "eleanor rigby was put in the last one and came up with a really different arrangement. a bit of a dark arrangement for "i'll be home for christmas," which is kind of a sad and dark song. let's do that again. both joshua bell and i are both iu people good but there are a couple of other iu connections in this album. was on this program not long ago and i did not know you knew each other. like at 16? >> i was 16. he was older. [laughter] he was 22. [laughter] tavis: but i can indiana.

>> but we both still look 16. we were at school in the hallways. we did know he does we did not know each other very well. but we did know of each other. we started hanging out a little bit and playing together. so yes, there is an iu connection. tavis: i just had these guys on my radio show the other day, straight no chaser. a wonderful group, a cappella group that comes together at indiana university and now they are on your project. >> i have known about them for years and wanted to include them and i also wanted to include for this christmas album a piece, a classical piece that i associate with christmas him "the nutcracker" by tchaikovsky. i asked them if they would do it and they said sure. i mentioned tchaikovsky and they sent me back a demo of seeing the orchestra part, the whole orchestra part done by voices in

a way that blew me away. humorous because hearing voices playing all of the orchestra part is interesting and makes you smile but it is also a bufo piece of music and it was a way to include them and me together, a violent -- also a beautiful music and it was a way to include them and me together. tavis: straight no chaser did a special for pbs and did really well. they are coming into their own now. people will start to appreciate them even more. >> i hope so. that is the fun of these albums. each of these people have their fans. people who are not in classical music, my hope is to always get some of those fans to hear my name and they may know nothing of me at all and it happens. when i do stuff with josh

grogan, he has so many fans. and i have so many people after my fascicle concert say i'd never heard of you until i heard the song with josh grogan and now they are classical music fans, which i think is something that we need to reach a larger audience. tavis: did most of these collaborations start with knowing what sony wanted to do and then you went after the artist? for did you say this is my wish list of artists and whatever makes sense for you and for them, the material came thereafter? >> it was artist-based first. i knew i wanted to work with and then it was figuring out something that would work. she had asked me to be on her album, her standards album that came out recently. i think she is nominated for a grammy for that. right afterwards, i was doing mine and she was gracious enough to do something with me. leaving -- living in miami, the miami connection, a cuban-

american band that i had worked well,n the last album as a latin version of "auld lang syne" for new year's. dealt with themy artist and figured out something fun to do. tavis: not too long ago, you had a birthday and turned 46. >> oh. [laughter] how low you then? tavis: i'm 49. >> ok, i was worried for a second. [laughter] tavis: josh's 46 and i am 49. but this strategy various -- i am not going to pick it up. it's yours so you pick it up. at home, take a guess how old this stradivarius is. not 49. not 46. just turned 300. 300 years old. >> yeah. and it will be around long after we are both gone. [laughter]

this was made in 1713, which is pretty awesome. that was during the time of johann sebastian bach i'm a before george washington was born. it is pretty awesome. . don't know exactly what month we've been celebrating all year it's 300 birthday. tavis: it still sounds pretty good. >> obviously, it's with a lot of money as well. tavis: i didn't want to go there, but since you did, i remember when you bought this because it was in the news how much you paid for this. so i am not saying anything that isn't knowledge for fans of yours. if the newsroom for its are correct, -- if the news reports are correct, it cost about $4 million. so the value of this goes up every year. >> it's not that i will ever see the fruits of it because i will have this the rest of my life but my grandkids will. are so few of them. there are probably 400 or five -- or 500 in all, the

stradivarius. and many of them are in museums. fewer are even played and available. i one comes on the market -- am very lucky. assumeafter 300 years, i that it has the capacity to take you -- as my friends would say, take you to check out. you can play this for the rest of your life. there is nothing that will happen to this at a certain point in terms of the sound of it. >> i don't know. as long as i take care of it and don't sit on it -- it is really remarkable how they remain -- the way things were made in those days, somehow everything was done with rate quality. but stradivarius in particular was a most amazing craftsmen in one of the great artists and scientists that ever lived because he figured out something in the sound and the science of acoustics that we still don't understand completely.

it should be around and playing. it is not getting any worse. -- have youu ever ever, since owning this, played any other instruments? >> occasionally i do. just a couple of weeks ago, i played at the white house, at the lighting of the christmas tree which is outdoors in the rain and cold and in the rain and i could not bring this out. so i took another violin, which is a very nice modern violin and i played on that one. betweenhe connection violent us and violin is so testified linda is to and violin -- between violinist and violinist so special. tavis: for those of us who saw the ceremony, we couldn't tell the difference and how beautifully you played, but could you tell the difference in your sound on this other

instrument i'm a this other violin? you can definitely feel it. but when you're doing something outdoors and a simplified already, it matters less and less. the beauty of the stradivarius is that you can play in carnegie hall with any application and the sound inside has something that projects and has a multifaceted sound. it kind of gets lost when you use application anyway. certainly i can tell in a second the difference. anyone who says that they have done experiments and nobody can tell the difference, that it is all in your head, that's just not true. [laughter] there is a big difference if you know how to use a violin like this. it's like being an artist and having a million colors at your disposal to make a painting and you can do so much more with the music. tavis: you are still a young

man. but you are just a teenager when he first hit the stage at carnegie hall. do you remember that night? >> very well. i was 17. on my carnegie hall debut, i was 17. this before we went on our first european tour and it was awesome. i grew up with my teacher talking about carnegie hall and hearing stories about my idol and his carnegie hall debut in 1918 or whatever it was. i don't know the exact year. so walking out on that stage and knowing that all the great people that ever played there -- it was awesome. but i played my best that night. somehow, it inspired me to play my best. yeah, it was a special moment. a fascinating moment for me because there are so many moments where the expectation is so high and sometimes, as artists, we measure up and sometimes we are inundated in the moment t.

what do you think it was about that particular night that allowed you to play your best? >> generally come under pressure, i feel i played better. i think the pressure helps me to get excited and focused. i feel lucky that that is the way that it affects me. there are great artists who are afraid to walk on stage and they suffer from it. something like carnegie hall, definitely, it inspires you it is hard to say what it is. it is partially the acoustics. it is generous and you feel like what you are doing is coming across to the people. this violin has some history at carnegie hall. it was stolen at running the holy 1936 from one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. it disappeared for another 50

years and he never sought again. tavis: so you didn't steal it. >> i didn't steal it. tavis: you weren't around in 1938. arts but it was a famous story when i came across the violin in london. i knew the famous story about this being stolen from vermont -- from huberman. i picked it up and played a few notes and said this is my violin. i have to have it and i never looked back. money would -- you can live on that for a very long time. [laughter] tavis: the insurance must be awfully nice. you do, on those rare occasions, human, you walk off the stage if you like -- and you feel like you haven't met your mark.

was it notes? i'm trying to get a sense of what you sensed of a performance that was not top-notch. >> it does happen to various degrees. sometimes it's preparation. sometimes i try to figure out what i ate that day. did i not sleep all enough? did i pack to many concerts in the week before? it is the worst feeling in the world to walk on stage and i feel completely confident, for one, or to walk off stage feeling like you could have done better. you learn from it and often, after the worst concerts, sure enough, a week later comes the best when you ever did. so i have to keep remembering that. tavis: after the first of the year, you are off to europe on a

contract work. orchestra. conductto direct and beethoven's sympathy -- beethoven's symphony is a great honor. so a european tour and then -- the schedule is booked for three years in advance. it's good to know i will be working. congrats on that opportunity. this is dismissive so we have pretaped this conversation. we both have mom is back in indiana. i men, -- i'm in kokomo and you are in bloomington. merry christmas to you and happy hanukkah and happy new year and phillies not without -- and feliz navidad and all the other else. have a great trip in europe. [laughter]

" from joshua bell and friends. he is now going to bless us with a gift he and his friend frankie marino will perform "i'll be home for christmas." i will say good night and thank you for watching as always. keep the faith and enjoy joshua bell and frankie marino. ♪ ♪

♪ >> ♪ will be home for christmas ♪ can plan on me ♪ snow and mistletoe ♪ ts on the tree ♪ me ♪istmas eve will find the love light glows ♪ christmas ♪me for

if only in my dreams ♪ ♪

♪ me ♪istmas eve will find the love light gleams ♪ ♪ though, i'll be home for christmas ♪ dreams ♪ in my y dreams ♪in min ♪

[applause] >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with singer jonathan butler who will also have a performance of holiday music. that is next time. we will see you then. ♪

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs. >> be more. pbs. >> be more. pbs. music ♪)

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