Joshua Bell

Joshua Bell (Joshua David Bell) is an American violinist born on December 9, 1967 (Perlman was 21 years old.) He is easily one of the most popular concert violinists currently on the scene. Bell began lessons at the age of four. Later on, he studied with Josef Gingold at Indiana University (Jacobs School of Music) from which he graduated in 1989. However, by 1985, he had already made his Carnegie Hall debut. Bell is best known for his soundtrack recording of the violin music on the 1998 film, The Red Violin. He is also known for having taken part in an experiment conducted by the Washington Post two or three years ago in which he played incognito at a D.C. metro station for which he collected about $40 from passersby. Bell has taught at the Royal Academy (London), MIT, and Indiana University. There is lots of information about him on the internet as well as videos on the YouTube and MySpace websites. He has also recorded most of the standard violin repertoire. He customarily wears informal attire for his concerts, as do Nigel Kennedy and Stefan Jackiw. He plays the 1713 Gibson Ex-Huberman Stradivarius, a notoriously famous violin, which, so far, has been stolen (and recovered) twice. 

Elizabeth Gilels

Elizabeth Gilels was a Russian violinist born on September 30, 1919 (Heifetz was 18 years old and would live another 68 years.) Though she was a brilliant violinist in her own right, she is best known for being the wife of violinist Leonid Kogan and the sister of pianist Emil Gilels. She was born on the same date as David Oistrakh, though eleven years later. Gilels began her studies with Peter Stolyarsky, who also taught David Oistrakh and Nathan Milstein, among others. She later studied with Yampolsky in Moscow. Early on, she formed a duo with her brother Emil before taking a third prize at the Queen Elizabeth competition in Brussels, Belgium, in 1937. After the Second World War, she formed her duo with Leonid Kogan, whom she later married. From 1966, she taught at the Moscow Conservatory. Some sources state that Ilya Kaler and Stefan Jackiw studied with her although they actually studied with Zinaida Gilels, Elizabeth Gilels' niece. She also wrote a method book on scales and double stops in the style of Carl Flesch. She died on March 13, 2008, at age 88, in Moscow.