Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post describes (and shows video of) a fascinating stunt, or experiment, depending on how you look at it:
Virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, toted his Stradivarius to a D.C. subway station at rush hour, set the case open on the floor for change, and played notoriously difficult pieces for an hour. A thousand people hurried past. Twenty-seven of them threw money in his case, for a total of $32.
It's a great story, if a little depressing (unless, I suppose, it validates your assumptions about the masses' appreciation of culture) -- read it. There is a bit of a happy ending: a few commuters, interviewed later, recognized that the musician was something special. A small child was riveted as his mother dragged him off. One person recognized Bell, knew his name. I was entranced by this bit, where Bell confesses:
"It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . ."
The word doesn't come easily.
". . . ignoring me."
Bell is laughing. It's at himself.
"At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.
Before he began, Bell hadn't known what to expect. What he does know is that, for some reason, he was nervous.
"It wasn't exactly stage fright, but there were butterflies," he says. "I was stressing a little."
Bell has played, literally, before crowned heads of Europe. Why the anxiety at the Washington Metro?
"When you play for ticket-holders," Bell explains, "you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don't like me? What if they resent my presence . . ."
Maybe everyone feels like an impostor sometimes. Via DarwinCatholic.
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