Longtime Musical Partners Joshua Bell, Steven Isserlis And Jeremy Denk Comes To The Smith Center

Hailed as "a dream team of performers," longtime musical collaborators and friends, violinist Joshua Bell, cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Jeremy Denk, will unite this spring 2019 for their first-ever trio tour to ten American cities. Beginning April 27, the three artists will perform hallmarks of the trio repertoire in acclaimed venues across the East and West coasts. The trio will perform at The Smith Center in Las Vegas at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, May 6. Tickets starting at $35 are available at TheSmithCenter.com.

Though Bell, Isserlis and Denk have previously released the landmark 2016 recording For the Love of Brahms together on Sony Classical, these performances mark the first occasions in which they will tour live as an ensemble. The Brahms album has been praised as "Absolutely essential listening for the classical fan...well-crafted, flawless...killer stuff."

The artists have enjoyed years of camaraderie and musical rapport-Bell remembers how he met Isserlis "about 30 years ago at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston [SC], where we played chamber music together. He has been my close friend and frequent chamber music partner ever since." Bell also met Jeremy Denk, a fellow Indiana University alum, at Spoleto. They have since appeared together in recital numerous times, and recorded French Impressions, featuring violin-piano duo works by Saint-Saëns, Ravel and Franck. "Together, we all share a long-lasting friendship, and to finally be able to tour with Jeremy and Steven is a goal fulfilled," adds Bell.

"Through telephone diplomacy, the three of us were able to agree on this substantial programme. Two gloriously romantic trios are paired with two major wartime masterpieces. It should be quite an emotional journey," notes Isserlis.

The trio will perform Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1 and No. 2, Shostakovich's Trio No. 2, Rachmaninoff's Trio élégiaque, and and Ravel's Trio in A minor. The artists will appear starting on April 27 at the Gaillard Center in Charleston, SC, followed by:

• April 28: Symphony Hall, Boston
• April 30: Alice Tully Hall, New York
• May 1: Strathmore, Bethesda, MD
• May 5: New Jersey Performing Arts, Newark, NJ
• May 6: The Smith Center, Las Vegas, NV
• May 7: U.C. Santa Barbara, CA
• May 8: Grand Hall, Northridge, CA
• May 9: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, CA
• May 12: Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA

About Joshua Bell: With a career spanning more than 30 years as a soloist, chamber musician, recording artist, conductor, and music education champion, Joshua Bell's curiosity and clarity of insight are a testament to his belief in the power of music as a unifying cultural force. An artist of precision and passion, Bell is committed to the violin as an instrument of expression and a vehicle for realizing the new and unexplored. A Sony Classical artist, Bell has performed on six continents with every major orchestra in the world, and recorded more than 40 CDs garnering GRAMMY, Mercury, Gramophone, and OPUS Klassik (formerly ECHO Klassik) awards. Named Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in 2011, he is the only person to hold this post since Sir Neville Marriner formed the orchestra in 1958. Bell performs on the 1713 Huberman Stradivarius violin.

About Steven Isserlis: Steven Isserlis enjoys a uniquely varied career as soloist, chamber musician, educator, author and broadcaster. He appears with the world's leading orchestras, performs with many period instrument ensembles, and works with many contemporary composers. Unusually, he also directs chamber orchestras from the cello. His huge discography includes the Bach Suites, Beethoven's complete cello music with Robert Levin, the Brahms Double Concerto with Joshua Bell and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, concertos by Haydn and CPE Bach with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, a special WW1-inspired disc with Connie Shih, Chopin and Schubert withDénes Várjon, and a new disc of Shostakovich and Kabalevsky with Olli Mustonen. which entered the official UK Classical Chart at No.1. He has written two children's books about the lives of the great composers and, with composer Anne Dudley, created three musical stories for children as well. A commentary on Schumann's Advice for Young Musicians was published in September 2016. For the past 20 years he has been Artistic Director of the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, Cornwall. He performs on the 1726 Marquis de Corberon (Nelsova) Stradivarius, loaned to him by the Royal Academy of Music.

About Jeremy Denk: One of America's foremost pianists, Denk is the winner of the MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Denk returns frequently to Carnegie Hall and has appeared in recent years with the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Cleveland Orchestra, as well as at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms. Denk is known for his original and insightful writing on music, which Alex Ross praises for its "arresting sensitivity and wit." His writing appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and he is working on a book to be published by Random House.

About The Smith Center for the Performing Arts: The hallmark of downtown Las Vegas' 61-acre urban development known as Symphony Park, The Smith Center for the Performing Arts is a public-private partnership that opened in March 2012. Heralded as the city's Heart of the Arts, The Smith Center is an architectural triumph and long-awaited cultural achievement that educates and entertains the citizens of Southern Nevada. The $470 million world-class performing arts center offers a blend of performances by resident companies, first-run touring attractions, lectures and internationally-acclaimed performers in music, theater and dance. The five-acre campus features four performance spaces including the 2,050-seat Reynolds Hall, the 244-seat Myron's Cabaret Jazz club, the 220-seat Troesh Studio Theater and the 1.7-acre Donald W. Reynolds Symphony Park for outdoor concerts. Additionally, the campus is home to the Discovery Children's Museum that opened in March 2013. For more information about The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, please visit www.TheSmithCenter.com. Keep up with news and events on Facebook and follow The Smith Center on Twitter at @SmithCenterLV.