Celebrating the birthdays of major performers and teachers is relatively rare in classical music. Composers get lots more attention.

In Indiana, however, master teacher Josef Gingold is a special case.

Since his teens, the highly regarded Gingold had taken up teaching with enthusiasm. With much real-world experience behind him and a long-nourished pedagogical zest, IU was in luck when it hired him in 1960.

His students included such stars as Joshua Bell and Jaime Laredo, both of whom are featured in the sold-out Bloomington centennial concert today at IU Auditorium.

Laredo also serves as music director for a program that includes J.S. Bach’s “Double” Concerto in D minor and Saint-Saens’ “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso” (with Bell as the soloist). The IU Violin Virtuosi, directed by Mimi Zweig, will also participate.

Another Gingold student, who moved to eminence as a teacher and concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, is Andres Cardenes.

“Observing a great master regularly and spending an awful lot of time with him outside of my lessons was really inspiring,” said Cardenes, who, as a student, became Gingold’s assistant.

The inspiration has saturated Cardenes’ 30 years of teaching. “Unlike anyone I’ve ever met, he always had incredible insight into how a person is built — violinistically, emotionally, mentally. He would manage to compile a profile of you and then push all the right buttons to help you succeed.”

The approach applied to the inevitable range of talent among violinists Gingold taught at IU. “He was extremely patient, and he never felt he was more important than those who came before him,” Cardenes said.

Cardenes will play Ysaye’s “Chant d’hiver” and Fritz Kreisler’s “Preghiera” at the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis’ celebration of Gingold on Monday at the Indiana History Center.

Other former Gingold students participating will be Miriam Fried, Bella Hristova and Nai-Yuan Hu Laredo, and the IU Violin Virtuosi will move their part of the celebration north from Bloomington to help out.