Violinist Joshua Bell’s New Album, “Butterfly Lovers”

Released on Sony Music, the GRAMMY Award-winning violinist performs with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra and conductor Tsung Yeh

Joshua Bell's newest album features Chen Gang and He Zhanhao’s Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto, Sarasate’s Ziguenerweisen, Saint-Saëns’s Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and Massenet’s “Méditation” from Thaïs.

Recorded with the Singapore Chinese Orchestra and conductor Tsung Yeh, all the works on the recording have been adapted for solo violin with an ensemble of traditional Chinese instruments.

To purchase and listen to the album, click here.

“I’m thrilled to have worked with the incredible Singapore Chinese Orchestra and Maestro Tsung Yeh on this recording,” Bell said. 

Bell and Yeh first performed together in 1989 — at the outset of Bell’s now almost four-decade career, following Yeh’s appointment as music director of Indiana’s South Bend Symphony Orchestra. Bell was the soloist for one of Yeh’s very first concerts.

“It was a joy to collaborate with the SCO musicians, who brought this work to life through the expressive sounds of the traditional Chinese instruments,” Bell continued. “[And including] three classics of the violin repertoire from 19th-century Europe [makes this] a truly multicultural project.”

As the mainstay of the album, the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto was written in 1959 by Chen Gang and He Zhanhao. In seven movements, the work recounts the ancient Chinese legend of the youthful “butterfly lovers,” a story with “themes of romance, star-crossed lovers, and friendship,” Bell explained.

On this album, Bell performs an adaptation of the piece made by Yang Hui Chang and Ku Lap-Man for an orchestra of traditional instruments. The original version of the concerto was scored for a full Western symphonic orchestra.

“Joshua has brought his own unique interpretation to this world-famous masterwork,” Yeh added. “[This collaboration has been] a beautiful and emotional musical journey. My favorite parts of this recording are the more soulful, soft passage. I can actually hear the sighing and sobbing from [Bell’s] violin.”

“As an American, I feel so privileged to have been given this opportunity,” Bell said on creating the album. “I find it fitting that we have recorded this in Singapore, a historically important setting that bridges East and West.”

A video of the second movement of the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto can be viewed below.