Joshua Bell

I mean, does anyone write beautiful melodies for classical orchestra anymore?

Well, I can leave you to be the judge of that.

We're going to play a little piece written just two years ago.

I commissioned my friend in New York, one of my favorite living composers, Kevin Putz, to write me a piece called Earth.

Kevin Putz's homage, or you might say his love letter to our precious planet.

You know, the beauty of classical music is that the more times you hear these pieces, the better they get.

I mean, they take on deeper and deeper meanings for the listener and for the players.

You know, these pieces become part of you.

They become your friends.

They become your soundtrack for your life.

So imagine if we didn't have orchestras anymore and these pieces that we just played and so many other greats could never be heard.

It would be like...

It'd be like having the Mona Lisa and Michelangelo's David locked up in a dark closet.

This music would just be a pile of paper with dots on the page, just meaningless without the orchestras.

Obviously, that would be a tragedy, and so what are we going to do about it?

Well, I think the answer is, of course, with our children and music education.

I so believe in music education for kids.

APPLAUSE

There's not a greater gift you could give to a child than the gift of music, and I wish every child had an opportunity to play in an orchestra.

In an orchestra, they learn so many things.