SPRING 2015

SPRING 2015

Contents 

Spring 2015 

Publisher’s Note 

FEATURED 

Interview with William Preucil 5 

Interview with Joshua Bell 8 

CONTRIBUTORS 

Ranaan Meyer 

Publisher/Founder 

Brent Edmondson 

Editor/Sales 

Karen Han 

Art Director/Designer 

I 

don’t think I could have asked for a more explosive issue of our journals! 

This issue on the modern career includes two of the great figures in violin 

playing today, Joshua Bell and William Preucil. Few musicians ever achieve 

the level of fame and recognition of these two masters, but the world 

benefits from their expertise, and thousands of violinists receive inspiration 

and guidance every day from the work they have done. Our hope is that 

some of the wisdom they share here may one day open the door for the next 

superstar violinist. 

This issue was designed around the modern career because there is a major 

change coming in the classical music world. A lot of ink has been spilled 

bemoaning the state of our industry, but musicians are blazing new paths 

every day and showing that audiences are still as enthusiastic as ever. 

In fact, the time has never been better for musicians to make their living 

as performers, entrepreneurs, and citizens of the world. 

Preucil’s experience in so many different settings, from his days as first violinist 

of the Cleveland Quartet through his many exploits as concertmaster, has given 

him unique perspectives on music and the great composers. He shares a great 

deal of insight on taking advantage of the situations you find yourself in, and 

always working toward the next goal. Preucil’s concertmaster training program 

is fascinating to me - the opportunity to get practical and hands-on training for 

your dream job from one of the undisputed experts in the field! Beyond honing 

your playing, imagine having an opportunity to lead your incredibly skilled 

peers and get constructive feedback in a safe environment. It’s not a resource 

many musicians get in their careers! 

Joshua Bell has become one of the most recognized figures in classical music, 

achieving the "household name" status that most dream of and few realize. 

From his days as a childhood prodigy to his present role as performer, music 

director, and philanthropist, Bell has made his way in the world by engaging 

and playing at the highest level. His thoughts on style and historically informed 

performance are especially interesting considering he is the successor of 

Sir Neville Marriner as music director of The Academy of St. Martin in the 

Fields. Fans of Josef Gingold’s pedagogy will find a warm reminiscent tone in 

Bell’s references to him, as well as some great perspective on the building of 

a great artist. 

I hope that in your exploration of this journal, you find inspiration 

and direction for your own career. The path may or may not be clear, 

but the time is right for you to follow your dreams! 

RANAAN MEYER 

Publisher Next Level Journals 

Ranaan Meyer 

Time for Three Founder and Bassist 

Education We All Deserve Foundation 

Founder 

Ranaan Meyer Entertainment 

Indianapolis Symphony Artist in Residence 

Sun Valley Summer Symphony Artist 

and Composer in Residence 

Charley Creek Arts Festival Artistic Director 

2 NOV/DEC SPRING 2015 2013 NEXT LEVEL VIOLINIST 

BASSIST 

SPRING 2015 NEXT LEVEL VIOLINIST 3

Next Level Journals is made possible in part by Robertson and Sons Violin Shop 

Interview with 

WILLIAM PREUCIL 

I learned a lot in that position, and I 

continue to learn a lot to this day. 

At that point, I thought I would have 

a long career in orchestras, and it 

was something I really loved doing. 

When did you start to view 

teaching as a calling? 

When you set out to play music, 

what did you hope to be doing with 

the violin at this point in your life, 

or with music in general? 

As I was growing up, my father played 

in a string quartet. I went to a lot of 

string quartet concerts, I went on 

tour with him a couple of times, and 

I just had it in my mind that I was 

going to play in a string quartet. I 

love the repertoire and it seemed 

like a natural fit. The first thing I did 

when I went away to school was 

to get involved in playing quartets. 

While I attended Indiana University, 

I had the opportunity to play in one 

of the school orchestras as concertmaster 

and I really enjoyed that, and 

I got some positive feedback about 

it. I hadn’t really found people with 

chemistry or commitment to start 

a string quartet, but there were a 

couple of orchestra jobs open. I 

applied to those orchestras and was 

accepted at one, because I was just 

out of school. I was lucky enough to 

be asked to take the concertmaster 

job in the Nashville Symphony. 

I think they were taking a chance 

on me being unknown but they felt 

good about my audition. I started out 

my orchestral career in Nashville and 

I believe it was a positive experience. 

I started to do a bit of teaching 

in my last few years in college. It’s 

a wonderful feeling when you help 

somebody. I had a few students at 

local universities when I was playing 

in Nashville, Utah, and Atlanta. 

When I moved to Rochester to join 

the Cleveland Quartet in residency 

at the Eastman School, all of a 

sudden I had a class of 10-12 students, 

and I found that I really enjoyed 

working with them. When I moved 

to Cleveland in 1995, I started off 

with a class about that size at the 

Cleveland Institute, which has grown 

much larger since then. I made a 

large time and personal commitment 

to teaching. If I had more time, I would 

love to do more private teaching 

and chamber music coaching. 

How did your career’s evolution, 

from Nashville to Cleveland, shape 

you as a player? 

One of the benefits I have found from 

having a career of both orchestral 

and chamber music is a very broad 

knowledge of all or most of the 

works that a given composer wrote. 

It helps in figuring out a Beethoven 

sonata when you have played his 

string quartets, his orchestral music, 

his symphonies, and so many other 

works of his. It widens the repertoire 

that you can draw on to understand 

a new work. 

What do you feel you learned 

from performing with a variety 

of ensembles? 

I have learned a great deal from the 

responsibility of leadership entrusted 

to me as the concertmaster of the 

orchestra. The issues in each orchestra 

are the same; we all want to keep 

it together! Sometimes that needs 

work and I’m one of the people in 

the orchestra that can help with that. 

When working with a lot of different 

conductors, the beats are very 

4 SPRING 2015 NEXT LEVEL VIOLINIST 


different. Some things need to be the same week to 

week, and often that can be the concertmaster. I think 

you get used to doing that, and you can draw on it 

for other settings. When you go to a chamber music 

festival, you get to have two rehearsals on a piece and 

then perform it. The idea is the same - being very clear 

and strong about what you’re doing, leading while 

making sure everybody is happy with the product 

and contributing fully. 

Can you name some of the skills that you think make 

the best people in the industry who they are? 

There are all the fundamental elements like rhythm, 

intonation, good sound and of course there’s the 

mysterious thing of what we call being musical and 

making something artistic happen. What’s important 

in the end is capturing the expression of the music and 

projecting that to the listeners so they have an experience. 

We try to interpret what the composer meant and what 

he wants us to feel when we play, what he wants people 

to feel when they listen. All those other basics allow you 

to play the instrument well enough, so that you’re able 

to express yourself the way you want to, not only 

emotionally but sonically. 

In terms of skills related to the concertmaster chair, 

there’s physical motion of leadership, trying to get the 

notes together or leading the shape of a phrase or showing 

dynamics. A lot of this is extremely visual. The physical 

motions should fit with the music, rather than being 

forced upon it. Ten years ago when I started this training 

program for concertmasters, one of the things I would 

do with the students is sit in the chair behind them and 

have them lead me through a piece. I would give them 

feedback on how clear they were, whether I could tell 

what they wanted me to do or where I was supposed to 

play. I had to learn how to teach others something that 

was instinct for me: getting other musicians to play a 

certain way based on my body language. I have spent 

a lot of time learning how I lead so I can train others to 

transmit their intentions and phrasing in this context. 

Part of the training process is giving students the freedom 

to experiment. We are all going to make mistakes 

professionally, but I try to set up an environment where 

the student can learn from them and use them to find 

the formula that will yield the best results. The ultimate 

goal is a sort of “translation,” because the concertmaster 

has the job of working with many different conductors 

throughout a season and helping deliver their message 

to the orchestra. That skill is vital to helping the orchestra 

stay together - unifying the way the musicians react to 

the beat being given and interpreting things like facial 

expressions from the conductor. It’s about constantly 

changing and learning from mistakes and experimenting. 

Thomas Edison made a lot of light bulbs before he 

got to the one that works. 

When you are teaching at this high level, do you use 

any books or materials consistently? 

Most of the students that I interact with on the collegiate 

level have already learned their scales, and although I 

hear them during the course of our studies, I mostly trust 

them to have that technical work done. There are a couple 

of etude books I like to use, mostly with undergraduates, 

and I have a couple of shifting exercises adapted from 

Janos Starker’s treatise on cello playing. I also like to pull 

technical examples from the repertoire they’re working 

on. I assess what a new student has worked on before 

and I choose the repertoire that will allow us to develop 

all the different techniques that a student will need to 

have a professional career - different bowings, upbow 

staccato, left hand pizz, some of the virtuosic techniques. 

I think it is important to work on technique in a musical 

context so that students are not only working on 

exercises as they practice but growing as musicians too. 

Would you mind elaborating on the 

Starker adaptation for shifting? 

Janos Starker, along with my teacher Josef Gingold, were 

two very influential musicians with incredible pedagogical 

resources. He wrote a book called “An Organized Method 

of String Playing” for the cello, and he was an early 

adopter of our modern string playing style - fewer audible 

shifts and narrower vibrato. Shifting is a big part of playing 

any string instrument. As the instrument gets bigger, 

it becomes an even bigger part. He had this wonderful 

simple idea of practicing any shift that you have to do 

from any note to any note. It’s an organized exercise that 

you practice a couple kinds of shifts from one note to 

another note and you start at a different place every day 

so by the time you get through the whole thing you’ve 

had a chance to practice any shift you’re ever going to 

come across, any finger combination. Once you have 

mastered the principle of shifting, you move from merely 

finding the right note to finding it with a specific expressive 

intention. You could expand your imagination by practicing 

the kind of shifting called for in a very expressive piece 

by Brahms, Wieniawski, or Vieuxtemps. The idea is 

that when you’ve gotten to the point where you feel 

comfortable with all the technical things that you’re 

working on, then trying to practice the artistic way you 

want to shift, the artistic way you want to play a phrase, 

and the real fun parts. 

How do you become a concertmaster? What would 

you say to someone who aspires to that position? 

The first thing to realize is that as far as the actual sound 

coming out of the violin, 99.99% of the time, you’re a 

section player. You have to know how to blend your 

sound at the same time you’re trying to lead something 

musically like shaping a phrase, or technically, like getting 

a chord together. There are some remarkable solo playing 

moments, like Ein Heldenleben where the violin is quite 

featured as a soloist. It’s still such a small percentage of 

the time that I don’t think it’s the ultimate consideration 

for a concertmaster. They are looking for someone with 

the ability, wherever it comes from, to bring a large 

section together not only technically but musically. 

There’s no substitute for having the chance to try it, 

learn what works and learn what doesn’t. You can get 

a sense listening to somebody play if they have honed 

that ability, that flexibility in music making. In terms of 

ensemble, if we were playing metronomically, it wouldn’t 

be that hard to stay together. Great music making uses 

and manipulates rhythm all the time, so having that 

flexibility is important for everyone in the orchestra 

and represents an excellent shared goal. 

How do you identify the students that you want 

to work with? 

I guess I’m looking for a little of what I have described 

above. I’m seeking flexibility, somebody who’s not just 

technically accomplished but has artistic goals and 

sensibilities. I also like them to be hard workers and show 

up on time, good personal discipline. I’m not looking for 

all these skills to be totally developed, but a prospective 

student has to aspire to those things in their playing. 

A student’s playing should demonstrate that they are 

aware of the existence of greater artistic and musical 

goals. If a student were to come to me with technical 

perfection already achieved, what would I teach them? 

I am not necessarily seeking a finished product, but I’m 

looking for the potential and drive to be a great player. 

This makes for a very enjoyable relationship because 

some lessons are about technique, some are about 

artistry and expression and different options. I have 

no desire to produce students that all sound the same - 

they are freely encouraged to craft a unique style because 

there is more than one good way to do something. 

What one person may want to express is not the same 

as another person. They can both be beautiful and be 

right - or at least not wrong! 

What is your organizational approach to teaching? 

Do you have all your ideas written down? 

Over the years, Steve Rose and I have marked a lot of 

parts for standard audition excerpts and they are available 

to students for reference. I have a book of markings for 

concertmaster solos as well. In lessons, things change. 

For one person, a different bowing might work better, 

fingerings are certainly personal. One goal in my lessons 

is showing different options to maximize comfort 

without sacrificing quality of sound. 

When you go into an audition, you need to be as 

comfortable as possible. It takes experience learning 

how to deliver a fine performance in a pressure situation. 

The strategy that weekly lessons take shifts around 

auditions, and we focus on the repertoire over multiple 

lessons, taking the music apart and building it back up 

for maximum ease and comfort. It helps to keep in mind 

that there’s not one tempo for each excerpt, there’s a 

ballpark. As long as the music doesn’t have a strained 

quality, individuals can play faster or slower within 

that acceptable range. 

Can you talk about how your recordings 

of excerpts came about? 

Summit Records set out to create an album of orchestral 

excerpts for each instrument, and asked me to do the 

violin recordings. My friend John Mack did the oboe one 

and thought it was a great idea. I didn’t know how hard 

it was going to be, but I hope I have created a lasting 

resource for violinists. ■ 



Joshua 

Bell 



Next Level Journals is made possible in part by Robertson and Sons Violin Shop 

You succeeded Neville Marriner as the Music Director of 

Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and recently recorded an 

album of Bach concerti with them. How has your collaboration 

with this group shaped your approach to playing Bach? 

The Academy embodies my idea of how to approach early music. 

They’re an extremely skilled group of musicians with a lot of 

experience playing in early music groups such as the Academy of 

Ancient Music. Most of them are totally comfortable with stylistic 

extremes and bring many great Baroque music sensibilities, yet they 

aren’t overly obsessed with it. For instance, they don’t tune down to 

A=415, which I’ve always found personally to be very frustrating 

as a player and essentially unnecessary. I try to find a balance 

between the modern approach, the way I was taught and brought up 

playing my instrument, and the concepts of Historically Informed 

Performance, which are new to me even though they have roots 

going very far back. When it comes to Bach specifically, I think 

the Academy perfectly blends a modern approach and Historically 

Informed sensibilities. 

The repertoire we cover extends beyond Baroque music, and includes 

all periods right up to the modern day. One of the most exciting 

elements I’ve been personally involved in is this revolution in the 

approach to Beethoven’s 9 symphonies, which I have been starting 

to record with them as well. 

How diverse is the repertoire that you cover with them? 

The orchestra is very flexible. While the orchestra began as a 

conductorless string ensemble, it made its name performing Baroque 

music in a time when that wasn’t nearly as common as it is now. Today, 

we perform repertoire ranging from Bach and Vivaldi all the way up 

through modern works, and we’re commissioning some new pieces 

for the orchestra now. They’re very flexible, highly experienced, and 

(most importantly) they’re highly adaptable. They’re adept at learning 

and adjusting their playing quickly. I’m always amazed at how much 

less rehearsal time I need relative to other orchestras. They adjust 

so intuitively, and pick up on ideas so quickly. They play like chamber 

musicians, the highest ideal of collaboration and understanding - 

this seems like something that should be intuitive when it comes to 

great orchestras, but this is a really unique asset. 

Since I became music director in 2011, we’ve played in nearly every 

style and genre conceivable. It’s been one of the great experiences 

of my career. I’m still learning from them, learning with them, 

and having a blast! 

You have an HBO special coming up where you collaborated 

with YoungArts. From an education standpoint, what impact 

do you hope to leave on the world? 

I’d like to leave my mark in a couple ways. On a bigger scale, I’d like 

to help large numbers of young people have access to classical music. 

One of the organizations I work with to accomplish this is called 

Education Through Music (etmonline.org). They install music 

programs in inner-city schools that don’t have the resources to field 

their own music programs. I think I can help the art form on a grand 

scale by making sure that more young people have access to classical 

music as students. 

It’s also very gratifying to leave your mark on individuals. I enjoy 

the one-on-one experience working with young people at Indiana 

University, as well as in the upcoming HBO special, working with 

a small group of students. Feeling like you’re making an impact on 

someone, seeing the lightbulb go on in their heads or changing their 

thinking - that’s very rewarding! It seems I’m reaching the stage 

in my life where I’m starting to think about those things more. I’m 

certainly not ready to pack it in at this point, but I’m looking forward 

to doing more to give back. I’ve gotten so much from so many people 

and I would like to pay that forward. 

I haven’t yet had the experience of taking someone under my wing 

and following their progress for years. It’s something I would like to 

do, find perhaps one or two students to really take on and go the 

extra mile for. I haven’t had the time to commit to one person. When 

I go to Indiana University, I don’t have my own class - I make myself 

available to those students that would like to play for me. I would like 

to establish continuity with an individual and help him or her to grow. 

That being said, I believe the way we learn is by taking a little bit of 

information from a variety of sources. I took in knowledge from a lot 

of great people, and my teacher Josef Gingold really encouraged me 

to play for lots of different people. I went to masterclasses, I played 

for other teachers at IU, and I always got reassured by Gingold 

that it was the right path to take. 

I’m wary of students that look at their teachers as gurus and follow 

them like religious fanatics. The students of these teachers all play the 

same pieces, have the same fingerings for everything, and they follow 

one way of thinking. I think it’s important for young people to assimilate 

many philosophies and distill them into their own artistic outlook. 

What are some experiences you had studying with 

Josef Gingold that took you to the next level? 

Gingold was not a dogmatic teacher, and he never spoon-fed ideas to 

me. The thing I remember first from him was the physics of playing. 

He had this incredible facility on the instrument! He also had an 

incredibly beautiful sound. When he would talk, he would always ask 

questions rather than give answers, finding ways to guide me so that 

I would make my own discoveries. It gave me confidence in myself - 

when I would start a new piece, I wouldn’t ask my teacher about how 

to start it, I would look inside myself. This was especially important 

once I didn’t have a teacher any more. 

Gingold had a tremendous influence on my interpretation of Romantic 

repertoire, especially when it came to timing and rubato. A lot of this 

came from listening to him play, hearing the old style of playing that 

he came from and revered. It’s something that’s very hard to teach, 

the way of subtly taking time and giving it back the way old masters 

like Heifetz and Kreisler did. 

As for Bach, when I was growing up I emulated recordings, 

especially those of Henryk Szeryng. His Bach was considered the 

expert interpretation at that time. It’s hard to listen to it in the same 

way now because my approach (along with most of the world) has 

changed drastically with respect to Baroque music over the last 30 

years or so. Szeryng’s playing, while still beautiful, is almost difficult 

to listen to because of the stylistic evolution surrounding Bach. His 

playing was very heavy, with audible rearticulation under every single 

slur - there were so many rules of so-called “authentic Baroque playing” 

that he broke! My approach has changed so much since then. These 

days my approach to Bach is to use far less vibrato. I don’t shy away 

from using it but I feel that it’s necessary to view it as an ornament. 

My teacher was from another era, and he had this gorgeous vibrato 

which he used for all styles of music. He even admitted that he was 

old fashioned in his approach to Baroque music and that he’d never 

change because that’s the way he was. My approach to vibrato over the 

years has changed with the world around me. For nearly every piece of 

music, I really believe in starting by playing with a pure sound without 

vibrato and then adding it as needed. I don’t advocate thinking of 

vibrato as something that you just paint on every note. Especially 

for Baroque music, it shouldn’t be overused. 

At a certain point, you decided to trust your instincts 

and to make decisions based on what you thought was right. 

How does somebody get to that point? 

We all listen to other musicians and try to incorporate aspects of their 

playing into our own. That’s natural and it’s a big part of learning to 

play music. When someone ends up sounding like a copy of someone 

else, it’s because they’re limiting their influences too much, often to 

one teacher or violinist. I think if you keep your influences broad, go 

to different teachers and listen to all kinds of artists and recordings, 

you’ll be influenced by different people in more ways than just the 

fingerings or bowings or small corrections they make with you. These 

people and their ideas become pillars in the structure of your playing. 

That’s true in life as well. If you read lots of philosophers you’ll 

eventually assimilate what makes sense to you and you’ll come up 

with your own brand of philosophy. This is more than just following, 

picking one guru and being led by him or her dogmatically. That’s 

why the world isn’t just packed full of duplicates of Karl Marx and 

Ayn Rand. Follow just one person and your head will be filled with 

dogma, you’ll risk not reaching your full potential. If you incorporate a 

little bit from all those people and figure out your own way of looking 

at life, you’re going to be more authentic to who you are. 

In addition to repertoire, what are your takes/feelings on etude 



ooks and are there any etude study techniques 

you draw on or recommend? 

Before studying with Gingold, I had a teacher named Mimi Zweig, 

who has a very big string academy in Indiana. She’s quite well known 

for teaching younger people. I went to her when I was about 8 years 

old, after my first teacher had taken me through a huge amount of 

repertoire. I was holding the violin all wrong, doing many technical 

things wrong, but I do credit that first teacher for keeping me interested. 

If I had been immersed in etudes my first few years of playing, I might 

have lost interest in playing the violin. At the age of 8 I went to Mimi 

and she brought me back to basics. We did Kreutzer etude number 

2 for two years before we went through all the permutations of that 

etude. It was very helpful in getting me back on track. I do believe 

in etudes because they allow you to focus on things that you need to 

develop and isolate certain bow strokes or techniques from which 

one can get distracted when working on so-called “real music.” 

Gingold also believed in etudes but he had a very different approach. 

He would take the most banal etudes and say, “Pretend this is the 

most beautiful piece you ever heard and treat it like beautiful music.” 

Amazingly, he could make a Kreutzer etude sound like a beautiful 

piece of music. He thought that you should never allow anything to 

sound less than beautiful. That sort of approach spilled over into the 

repertoire I learned. I also credit Gingold with teaching me to value 

the great violin repertoire like Wieniawski and Kreisler. He revered 

this music in the way many people appreciate Beethoven and Mozart. 

Young violinists are cynical about certain composers not being great 

at what they did. If I only had a nickel for every disparaging remark 

about the Saint-Saens violin concerto or Viextemps concerti not being 

great music! I was sitting next to a young conductor at Tanglewood 

once, during a performance of the Grieg piano concerto. After the 

performance he said, “it was great, kind of a schmaltzy piece but it was 

a nice performance”. I got so mad, I yelled at him on the spot! I said, 

“how dare you say that about Grieg piano concerto?! It’s one of the 

great pieces of music ever written for the instrument!” 

As a soloist, chamber musician, artistic director, and educator, 

you’ve been incredibly successful. You still have a long career 

ahead of you. What do you most want to be most remembered for? 

I’m very aware that as far as what one is remembered for…well, 

people’s memories are short. Most of these celebrities of the music 

world who were once household names are now forgotten, so I don’t 

have any expectations that I’ll be remembered for a long time. I think 

my best chance is to compose something. I feel like what I’d like to do 

in my life is to leave behind some piece of music that may be played in 

the future. I’ve always been a wannabe composer. I write all my own 

cadenzas, for concertos by Brahms and Beethoven and so forth, and 

I create many arrangements. I’ve really enjoyed my contributions to 

the various pieces that I’ve added to with cadenzas. My dream is to 

write a solo violin sonata. That’s my goal before I die, to write a piece 

of music that’s performed by other violinists. But we’ll see. As far as 

what I want to be remembered for, I do have recordings and there are 

a few that I’m proud of. Not everyone will love my interpretation of 

the Tchaikovsky for instance, but if there is some kid a hundred years 

from now that stumbles upon some old recording and says, “oh, I like 

his version”, it’s kind of a nice thought. ■ 

© Photo Harald Hoffmann 

© Photo Nahum Tukh 

Vadim Repin 

Maxim Vengerov 

Famous Violinists 

Playing Pirastro Strings 

© Photo Henri Fair 

© Photo Henri Fair 

© Photo Richard Beland 

Leila Josefowicz 

Ilya Gringolts 

Natalie MacMaster 

Strings Handmade in Germany 

www.pirastro.com 


Joshua Bell 

Aaron Rosand

SPRING 2015

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