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1.1.2001 00:12
Joshua Bell's mission: To spread the love of the mandolin
By CHANNING GRAY
Journal Arts Writer
The player:
Joshua Bell, concertmaster of the Providence Mandolin Orchestra and passionate proselytizer for the guitar-like instrument.
What he's up to:
Bell, who runs Verbatim, a Providence graphic and Web design firm, spends his down time playing and teaching the instrument he picked up while studying sociology at Brown. When he's not sitting at the head of the PMO, he's on the road with daughter Sarah, 17, and friends as the Pandora Mandolin Ensemble.
The group has gigs booked next month in Stonington and at the Jamestown Library.
Beginnings:
Bell, 48, cut his musical teeth as a youthful French hornist in the Providence public schools.
"I was worse than terrible," said Bell, who took up horn lessons in the fourth grade. "My mother used to say 'Take that thing some place where I can't hear it.' And I'd tell her, 'This is the French horn. I'd have to be in Chepachet.' "
Bell switched to trumpet at Classical High School, and then, while at Brown, began taking lessons with PMO founder Hibbard Perry.
"It fit my personality," he said of the mandolin. "I liked the unusual aspect of it."
Bell, who also plays with a family folk troupe called the Outhouse Shouters (his two brothers are musicians and his late father, David, was a washtub bassist and a kazoo virtuoso), has about 10 private students, and does a lot of arranging for the mandolin, even though he has little formal training outside of lessons with Perry.
Giving voice:
More than one observer has likened Bell to the Johnny Appleseed of the mandolin. He's visited schools around the country, demonstrating and singing the praises of an instrument that can provide immense enjoyment without years of arduous practice.
The PMO is made up largely of amateur musicians, Bell points out, but is "respected around the world."
"When I teach, I tell my students that this is an instrument that can give voice to the music inside you."
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