Joshua Bell is the featured soloist in seven-time Oscar®-nominated Composer James Newton Howard’s original score for Defiance, based on an extraordinary true story about three Jewish brothers who were responsible for saving over 1,200 Jews during WWII. Directed by Academy Award®-winning producer Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond), the film stars Daniel Craig (Casino Royale), Liev Schreiber (The Painted Veil) and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott).

Defiance opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 31, 2008 and nationwide on January 16, 2009.

Composer James Newton Howard created a stark and compelling score for Defiance. Howard and Zwick decided to recruit the dynamic, young violinist Joshua Bell to play the score’s haunting, evocative solos, in tribute to the many lost artists of Europe. “I wanted to have a score that was not only appropriate historically but also emotionally appropriate,” says Zwick. “The sound of the violin is central to Eastern European Jewish culture; it is the sound of what was lost. And so it became the centerpiece, with everything else embroidered around it.”