GIOIOSOto be played with joy INSIEMI together JOSHUA BELL & LARISA MARTINEZ

Joshua is 53, but has long been the ‘it’ couple recognized as one of the world’s greatest classical violinists in the world of - among the ranks of Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zuckerman and classical music! Itzhak Perlman. He had a precovid schedule of up to 150 concerts a year; he’s played on over 40 records including 7 Billboard #1 Classical Albums, and on a half-dozen movie soundtracks; he’s played a wide array of classical, jazz and popular music with everyone from the New York Philharmonic to Sting, and he’s the Musical Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Orchestra. Despite his stature, he’s best known by everyone other than classical music enthusiasts for having played incognito as a busker in a Washington D.C. subway station for an article in the Washington Post in 2007. Famously, out of 1,097 passers-by, only one recognized Bell, and he received a total of only $32.17 from 27 people for the 45-minute performance. Ironically, Bell’s experiment seemed to suggest a general indifference to classical music amongst the general public, notwithstanding his excellence and fame.

Joshua’s musical genius was discovered early on, as he was stringing up rubber bands around the house for scientific and musical experimentation. He started playing violin at age 4, was a soloist with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra by the time he was 14, and left Indiana to start a life on tour at age 18. Joshua calls the luckiest break of his life that, in Bloomington, he started at age 12 studying at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with his life-long mentor, the master Josef Gingold.

Joshua grew up in Bloomington, Indiana, where his father, an ex-Episcopal Priest, was a psychotherapist and Professor at 90 BEDFORD & NEW CANAAN Indiana University, and his mother was a counseling psychologist and, as Joshua describes it, a pretty good amateur pianist.

At 34, Larisa, a soprano, is among

In 2016, she won the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Audition in Puerto Rico, as well as the Angel Ramos Foundation Award and the Audience Prize. That same year, she was part of President Obama’s artistic delegation to Cuba, culminating in the PBS special Live from Lincoln Center: Seasons of Cuba, in which she was showcased. She’s performed as Corrina in Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims, as Violetta in La Traviata with the Wichita Grand Opera, and as Maria in West Side Story at Festival Napa Valley, to name a few, and in 2019, she made Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall debuts. For the last three years, Larisa has toured with tenor Andrea Bocelli, debuting at Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl and throughout North America, South America, and Europe.

Larisa grew up in Puerto Rico in what she describes as a very happy childhood. She was first exposed to classical music singing in the Puerto Rico National Choir. She studied Vocal Performance at the Music Conservatory in San Juan, and simultaneously received her Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences, with high honors, from the University of Puerto Rico. Moving from Puerto Rico to Manhattan, Larisa then earned a Masters degree from the Mannes New School of Music. She is a proud artistic resident of Turnaround Arts, led by the Presidential Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, an organization that strives to transform schools in need through the arts.

a new generation of opera stars.

LARISA’S LOOK: The Ulla Johnson peasant dress from Toney Toni & The Gang in Pound Ridge

The couple came up from their Park Avenue apartment to look for ‘a little country house’, thinking it would be fun for them and Joshua’s sons; Josef, now 14, and twins Benjamin and Samuel, now 11; just to have a place to getaway. Intending at first only to check-out the neighborhood, they fell in love with the first house they saw - a large white Mayer Goldfinger modern, with a tennis court, and soaring evergreen views. The two were married in the front yard on October 5, 2019, only 4 months before being quarantined in the house by the pandemic, and are now happy to call the B&NC Mag area their home.

B&NC MAG: Joshua, you’re the Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle of your profession, and yet you can walk around on the street or go into a restaurant and almost no one knows who you are. Heck, you’re famous for having proven most people don’t know who you are even if you’re playing violin right in front of them. What does that say about us, and how does it affect you?

JOSHUA: Well, one has to disassociate fame from talent or importance. McDonalds is more famous than the French Laundry. Kim Kardashian is more famous than the genius physicist, Brian Greene, who just might be the smartest man on earth. Very few people in the classical music world ever get much fame. I have been fortunate enough to get to play, on occasion, in front of huge crowds, and have been in all kinds of televised and broadcast appearances, including Sesame Street and Johnny Carson. It’s enjoyable, but it’s enough. I wouldn’t want to be so famous that you’re always public. We have some good friends who are really famous, and for sure I don’t envy their exposure.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to turn millions of people on to classical music. I believe there’s a huge untapped market. It’s particularly important to reach young kids. Give them the chance to hear great music with ‘fresh’ ears. Leonard Bernstein’s concerts for young people are a great example of how we can grow interest.

LARISA: That’s just one of the things I love about him. He’s such a gentleman. We met at the Blue Note in Greenwich Village in 2009 at a Chris Botti concert - he’s a mutual friend of ours. I thought Josh was really cute, but have to admit that, at first, as a music student and devotee, I was mostly excited to meet the great Joshua Bell. I had to approach him, and he was shy in responding. When we talked, he was genuine, and interested in me.

JOSHUA: Well I guess whatever fame I do have - at least in the music world - paid off for me! For sure, I never would have had the nerve to have approached Larisa when we met!

Believe me, I was immediately, and genuinely, interested! I just didn’t think I had a chance…

B&NC MAG: Well then, fame aside, are you the Babe Ruth, or the Mickey Mantle, of classical violin? Are you the G.O.A.T.?

JOSHUA: It’s just not like that in music. Or any art. There is no rank. You know just how many homers Babe Ruth had. But in music it’s not tangible. Selling albums is certainly not a good measure. Even within each musical discipline, classical, jazz, whatever, it’s purely a matter of taste, and it’s different for each listener. It’s one of the reasons I never participate in those ‘Desert Island Album’ shows. There’s no way to pick one performer, or one performance, and say it’s the best.

B&NC MAG: Darn it, your ‘desert island albums’ was going to be one of my questions. How about what kind of music you listen to?

JOSHUA: We listen to a lot of classical music, and a lot of jazz and some popular stuff, but probably most of the time when we’re listening to music around the house, it’s when we’re working on arranging or performing one piece or another. Larisa is the hardest working musician I’ve ever met and she listens tirelessly to everything that may inform her next performance. And, during covid, she’s started researching Latin art songs and even wrote a couple, so we’ve been listening to a ton of Spanish rhythms lately.

I guess I’d pick Beethoven if there was only one composer, and the Beatles if there was only one band. I love jazz classics and we listen to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald. I listened to a lot of Genesis and Peter Gabriel as a teenager, and I like bluegrass, and Chick Corea. There’s good music in every genre...and, as a corollary, I’m sure there was a lot of junk during Mozart’s time, that just didn’t stand the test of time.

But to be honest, if I’m not actively listening to something, I like quiet. I’ve got enough music going on in my head all the time. My mind is actively engaged when I’m listening to music. Music isn’t meant to be in the background like wallpaper. That’s really a big part of the beauty of classical music - it involves the listener. It requires an active mind, like watching a play.

B&NC MAG: So you two were still musically productive during the pandemic, despite all your performances being cancelled?

LARISA: The pandemic has involved widespread death, sickness, suffering and economic hardship, and so it’s almost uncomfortable to talk about how we’ve fared. But for us, the sabbatical had a lot of silver linings. We were married here, only 4 months before staying home for the pandemic, so the year at home was like our honeymoon. Both of us had pretty full schedules before the pandemic. I’m always going here or there for weeks or months at a time as opera requires, and Josh has been touring non-stop his entire life. I got to spend lots of quality time with all the boys - Josh and the kids - and Josh has been ecstatic to have so much more time with them to experience the day-to-day and to explore all the wonders around this house. We’ve maintained a goodsized vegetable garden, and we built the chicken coop and have been enjoying finding eggs every morning.

The break was a good thing for me professionally as well. It gave me some time and space to find my own voice. In opera, you are always playing a role. During covid, I felt like I had the time to start redefining a role of my own. I love working with new music, and like Josh said, I’ve started recording my debut album of Latin American classical songs. And we took Arthur Murray salsa lessons to get ready for our wedding...so we also did a lot of dancing in our livingroom during the pandemic!

JOSHUA: It was the luckiest thing to get this house just before covid. This area is so full of wonder, with so much to do, and being surrounded by nature has been great for us and for the boys. But I have to say that I took a bit more of a vacation during covid than Larisa. She’s a busy bee. She’s interested and interesting. I love her curiosity. She finds something of interest and she goes crazy learning everything about it. She’s that way about music, and even the chickens. She hasn’t mentioned it, but she taught herself to play the guitar during covid as well.

LARISA: He makes me sound like a workaholic, but opera isn’t something you just roll out of bed and do. You can be born with a voice, but you have to work at it. And I enjoy learning all the languages and cultures involved in the work I’m performing.

JOSHUA: My regular concert schedule is very demanding, mentally and physically, and it felt pretty good to work on relaxing and getting healthy. I’m a good tennis player and I’ve always liked basketball - although it’s not the greatest idea for me, given the risk to my hands. But during covid, I shot baskets in a kind of meditative regimen, headphones on with a book-on-tape, coffee at the ready, for at least an hour, almost every morning. We took daily walks around the neighborhood.

Of course, I worked. I was able to play on zoom with other musicians and even some doctors and healthcare workers! Although it’s not the same as live appearance, I’ve been able to progress despite the quarantine. I can always study, learn and practice. I’ve delved into some new music and prepared some programs and arrangements to perform as things get back to normal. And Larisa and I have worked on the “Voice and the Violin” programs we will be going back to performing together. B&NC MAG: You’re each musical geniuses - what does that mean? Is the music springing out of you? Are you hearing it, seeing it, feeling it, expressing it?

LARISA: In the end it’s all about connection for me, being true to the music, libretto and to myself, while getting the message across and connecting with the audience.

And Josh is far too modest to ever answer this question about genius. If you could see him moving his fingers in his sleep you might get the idea. And for everyone it’s magical to see and hear Joshua perform. And I’ll tell you it’s not just in music. He’s a great speaker, and a great writer, and great at chess, which he can play in his head. He’s intelligent generally. He’s even socially ‘OK’!

JOSHUA: Well I wouldn’t say it’s springing out of me. But I do hear a lot of music, and a lot in music, all the time. There’s an aspect of learning the notes of a particular piece that’s like memorizing a poem, but it’s really more about understanding the meaning of the notes in context, like becoming fluent in a language. I try to inhabit the music and to get to what the composer wanted to express. In that sense, performing classical music is a bit different than being a modern pop star. It’s more interpretive than innovative, more reverent than revolutionary. When I’m performing, I’m moving through the path and drama of the music. It takes endless practice and tireless work to play the violin, but I would say that the music itself does come naturally for me.

B&NC MAG: What’s next? What do you want to accomplish as your performances resume?

LARISA: Well, one thing we’re working on is commissioning a composer to write something for us to perform as part of our Voice and the Violin repertoire. And I’m really looking forward to getting back into the studio, and particularly collaborating with Josh.

JOSHUA: My collaborations with popular musicians are very gratifying, and I’ll keep doing more things like that, and constantly trying to grow musically. But, truly, just resuming live performances is everything. I cherish the unique opportunity to be doing The Voice and the Violin with my wife. I’m grateful for my role as Musical Director of the Academy of St. Martin In The Fields. And I’ve got lots of great plans for concerts with all kinds of interesting people. I truly believe that one thing the pandemic has reminded all of us is how much we value the arts, live music and nature in our lives. I am excited that we are getting back to doing what we love to do.

Larisa donned another Ulla Johnson dress from the local store, Toney Toni & The Gang’s summer collection for an afternoon picnic!

B&NC MAG: Joshua, would you like to play incognito at a local restaurant, maybe in a local jazz or pop band?

JOSHUA: No, I don’t think I’m doing that! The whole playing in the subway stunt was enough! I wasn’t really

surprised that people walked by. Contrary to the conclusion everyone draws, I actually think it shows how classical music requires more than drive-by attention. ...And maybe I could have played better...

There Will Be Lobster

BY: Lily Arnell

Sara Arnell, beloved resident of Katonah since 2001, used her time during the pandemic to refine her new memoir, There Will Be Lobster: Memoir of a Midlife Crisis, released July 20th, 2021. In addition to being a lauded advertising mogul, a celebrated writer, an adored professor at The New School’s Parsons School of Design, a competent grill master, and an avid art collector, Sara Arnell is, in full disclosure, my mother. And I say this not only as her daughter, but as her greatest, most ardent admirer.

As her child I’ve had the distinct privilege of watching my mother work and create ceaselessly, passionately and innovatively, constantly setting and accomplishing seemingly unattainable, astoundingly admirable goals, and always reaching unprecedented heights in both her career and personal creative life. I have never once doubted her capacity to achieve anything. Through my eyes, she is remarkably ambitious, creative, and enthusiastic. But her superhuman quality doesn’t make her exempt from the textures of the human experience, from facing hardship, stress, strain, pain and discord. Her new memoir, There Will Be Lobster, chronicles a difficult period of her life, a time of immense grief, avoidance, depression, and confusion. She tells a story of loss, heartbreak, and desperation. But more than that, she tells a story of profound love - a love of life, her children, her health, her happiness. Poignantly written in striking lyricism and humor, my mom illustrates how sometimes, in desperate efforts to seek contentment, we muscle vehemently down narrow passages of indulgence and neglect, in search of immediate gratification. But what we can learn from my mom’s story is that the key to finding answers within ourselves is first accepting a more expansive perspective.

CRYING AT THE GYM

Unsuccessful attempts at doing things that I should have succeeded at made me feel broken. I couldn’t even get the simplest things right. My daughter asked me what I got my mother for Christmas. “A box of really nice chocolates,” I told her. “Grandma has diabetes,” she reminded me. I ate the chocolates for dinner over the next several days, almost as punishment for how careless and thoughtless I was. The word “Mom” was crossed off my Christmas list. I added her back on. No one knew what was happening to me because I disguised my depression under baggy clothes, excuses, and my new fake smile. No one knew how I felt or what I was doing when I was alone. No one knew that what I said I was doing was not the truth. I realized that when I told a few people what I had actually been up to—the medium, the psychics, having visions of my dead grandfather—they winced, then whimpered in sadness for what I had become. So I hid my turmoil, regrets, and depression from everyone. I put on a stiff upper lip when I needed to emerge into the world to shop for food or things I needed around the house, then retreated back home, under the covers. I didn’t want to feel this way. I didn’t want to live one life in the world and the opposite at home. I felt torn by who I was and who I wanted to be. I wondered how the imposter Christian Gerhartsreiter, alias Clark Rockefeller, had successfully managed his competing personas. I wondered how he reconciled being a rich Rockefeller by day with his former-German-exchange-student and wannabe-actor reality. He used murderer David Berkowitz’s social security number to get a job. He lived the life of a wealthy scion. He married a successful, intelligent woman. He faked who he was and fooled a lot of smart people. I faked it every day too. I dreamed time and time again about being someone I wasn’t. I wanted to be the person that people talked about as having it all. “Some people have all the luck,” they would gush! I wanted to be the one who thinks everything is going to work out, and it does. I wanted to feel like the construction worker on a broken scaffold who cheated death, or the kid that fell seven stories and lived. I wanted to be the woman who escaped her attacker, or the drug addict that was found in time and lived to shoot up another day. I wanted to be gung ho with positivity and optimism, able to make things happen out of sheer willpower, energy, and stamina. I wanted to feel

triumphant. Instead, I sat on the floor of Equinox gym and tried to hold together the façade that was me. My trainer asked me to get into a plank position and hold it for fifteen seconds. I held it for three and collapsed. Then I burst into tears. “I can’t,” I wept. “It’s OK,” he said as he joined me on the floor. Another trainer came over, thinking I was hurt. My trainer waved him away. “I’m so sorry. This is so embarrassing.” “Don’t worry,” he said, trying to lighten things up. “This is nothing. You should see the stuff that happens here.” I wiped my nose with my sleeve, and he pulled me up. “How was your day?” my daughter asked when we next spoke. “I sat on the gym floor and cried because I couldn’t do a plank. I act like a workout buff to everyone, talk about going to the gym, getting fit, eating healthy, but none of it’s true.” “Really?” “Really,” I confessed. “That is the best summation of how I’m doing. And I cried loudly too. It was not a whimper. It was full-on wailing. People were looking at me like I was hurt or crazy. Trainers came over to help. I looked up at one sobbing and told him I couldn’t do a plank. He backed away like he was retreating from a rabid animal.” “Sorry, Mama.” “Do you know how many times you say ‘Sorry, Mama’ to me? Too many. I’m sorry. I’m the sorry one. I am so sorry that I make you say that to me. I’m sorry that that’s all you can say to me.” My tone was frantic. I was ending my sentences in a high-shrieked pitch. I sounded angry. And I was. But not at her. I wondered if this was how alias Clark Rockefeller felt when he got found out.

Michael J. Neeley Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker

Cell Phone: 914.588.2770 Email: Michael.Neeley@raveis.com

Mike grew up in Pound Ridge, went to Fox Lane, passed the c.p.a, graduated from Pace Law School, and opened his own real estate office. Mike has been focused exclusively on local real estate for the last 30 years. His intuitive ability to connect with clients and keen knowledge of the market have led to over a half-billion dollars in residential sales.

Lori Sandler Licensed Real Estate Salesperson

Cell Phone: 914.260.5842 Office Phone: 914.401.9111 Email: Lori.Sandler@raveis.com

Lori and her husband, Mark, raised their three boys in Pound Ridge, with all three attending Fox Lane. The couple still resides in Pound Ridge. Lori brings an insider’s knowledge of the marketplace, determination, perseverance, and sense of duty to each client that makes her a most valuable addition on the Michael J. Neeley Team.

56 Conant Valley Road, Pound Ridge, NY $2,850,000

Discerning. Modern. Curated. Timeless. Private.

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from uncertainty emerges confidence

It takes hard work to be good at something. We will walk side by side as your kindergartner learns this lesson.

To get started:

Call Director of Enrollment David Suter at 203.894.1800 x112 RIDGEFIELD ACADEMY 223 West Mountain Road Ridgefield, CT 06877 203.894.1800 www.ridgefieldacademy.org