Joshua Bell, 39, is a world-renowned classical violinist who has won the highest honors in his field and normally plays to standing room only crowds who pay upwards of $100 per ticket to hear him play. He plays a Stradivarius violin that was handmade in 1713 and is valued at $3.5 million. Despite his reputation and musical genius, however, Bell couldn't draw a crowd who could hear him for free in a Washington, D.C. Metro subway station.
The Washington Post had invited Bell to participate in an experiment in "context, perception, and priorities." The question the Post wanted to explore was, "In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?" Dressed like an average street performer, Bell stood near a trash can in the L'Enfant Plaza station during a Friday morning rush hour in January 2007 and played several classical pieces on his Stradivarius, including Bach's Chaconne (one of the most difficult violin pieces to master), as busy commuters came up the escalators on their way to work.
The results were telling. In the 45 minutes that Bell played, 1,097 people went by. Only seven people stopped to listen for at least a minute. Twenty-seven people dropped money in Bell's violin case, most without stopping or looking at him, for a total of $32.17. Said the Post: "If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?"