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Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 8, 2007; Page W10
A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the
violin; it was a cold December morning. He played six Bach pieces for about
45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that
a thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to
work.
In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.
No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?