On 12 January 2007 at 7.51 a.m. a man began playing the violin in the L’enfant Plaza Metro Station in Washington DC. He wore jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a baseball cap and played six Bach pieces for forty-three minutes. During that time during morning rush hour, it was calculated that 1,097 people passed through the station, most of them on their way to work.
Three minutes went by before a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried on.
A minute later, the violinist received his first tip: a woman threw a dollar into the opened violin case and did not stop.
A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and moved on.
The one who paid the most attention was a three-year-old boy. His mother was hurrying him along but the boy stopped to look and listen. Finally, the mother moved him on and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. Several other children responded in a similar way. All the parents made them move on.
In the forty-three minutes the musician played, only six people stopped and stayed for a while. In all, about twenty gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he had finished playing and silence took over there was no applause, no recognition.
The violinist was Joshua Bell, acclaimed as one of the finest musicians in the world. He played some of the most intricate pieces ever written on a violin, called the Gibson ex Huberman, handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivarius and worth three and a half million dollars.
Three days earlier Joshua Bell played at a sold-out concert at Symphony Hall, Boston where seats, on average, cost $100.
Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about people’s perception, taste and priorities. The Washington Post was interested to discover if, in an everyday environment at an unusual time, we respond to beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

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Niall MacMonagle

This was printed in TEXT – A Transition Year English Reader. Available HERE

Photo of Joshua Bell found on imgartists.com