Symphony Sessions

Archive for the ‘Updates’ Category

Three great evenings of extraordinary music featuring favourites from the award-winning “Symphony Sessions” album and many new arrangements for Advent and Christmas.

Dates: December 10th, 11th & 12th, 2009
Time:  8:00 pm
Venue: Lakeview Church
Address:  South of Highway 16 & Boychuk Drive
City: Saskatoon SK, CA

Tickets: $29 (General Seating)
plus $1.00 Convenience Fee and GST

Available at:
Lakeview Church
Scott’s Parable Christian Stores – 306-244-3700
106B 810 Circle Drive E, Saskatoon
 
Thursday Dec. 10th 

Friday, Dec. 11th      

Saturday, Dec. 12th 

Online tickets will be held at the door for pickup. The doors to the church open at 7 pm. The auditorium doors open at 7:30 pm.

Note: Premium Tickets are not available for this concert.

A great evening of extraordinary music featuring favourites from the award-winning “Symphony Sessions” album and many new arrangements for Advent and Christmas.

Date:  December 6th, 2009
Time:   7:30 pm
Venue:  Centre In The Square
Address:  101 Queen Street North
City:  Kitchener ON, CA

Tickets: $29/$39/$49  (Senior and Student Discounts)

Available Only at:
The Centre In The Square Box Office
Online:  
Phone:   519-578-1570 or 1-800-265-8977

Rei Hotoda, former Assistant Conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

Introduction by Faye Hall: Rei Hotoda, the former Assistant Conductor for the WSO, has conducted 22 (count ‘em) symphonies with Steve Bell and his cohorts in Winnipeg, across Canada and even in Nashville Tennessee. The Symphony Sessions CD and DVD are the fruit of their co-labours, for which they are reaping high praises across the continent.

Steve Bell and Signpost Music are extremely proud of the friendship and career relationship with Rei that bloomed in the process, and another result was that Signpost produced Rei’s first solo piano album, Apparitions. Steve was intrigued by her Asian avant-garde music, to the point of recommending a listen to the album to those of you with an adventurous spirit.

To those who know of Rei, this is an update to her story, which continues in the 100 degree temperatures down south… 

“Greetings from Dallas, Texas!”

I am now embarking on my job as the Assistant Conductor of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The trek from Winnipeg to Dallas in a U-Haul truck was quite the experience. This truck held our all stuff, our prized possessions and my first “baby”, my Steinway grand piano on which I recorded my solo piano CD – Apparitions. Thankfully, everything and everyone made it with no glitches.

My son, Constantine and I are adjusting quite nicely to the friendly folk down south. We’ve moved from one extreme climate to another – we can’t go outside because of the extreme 100F degree temperatures. He loves the fact that we can ride our bikes and swim all year round.

We are starting our fall schedules with lots of excitement. I’ve been asked to do a performance residency at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle from November 19-21, 2009. There I will promote my CD, teach a piano master class, lecture in the music department and perform a solo piano concert in the Fall Cornish Music Series. I’m also excited to work with Steve Bell and “gang” for his concert in Kitchener-Waterloo on December 6/09.

The Dallas Symphony is keeping me very busy. This fall, I’ll be conducting a Ben Folds concert September 30th and in addition, the DSO has given me a series of concerts in Greenville, Texas and all the education and family concerts. The DSO performs in the Morton Meyerson Hall in Dallas and it is quite a marvel to behold. It was designed by the famous architect, I.M. Pei and it is stunning inside and out.

Someday, I’d love to try to get Steve Bell to perform with us here! 

Rei's Solo Album - Apparitions

Steve’s concert DVD Steve Bell in Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra has received the Best Music Video award at the Crown Award 2009 ceremonies in Colorado. We were both surprised and thrilled about the announcement and want to thank and congratulate Producer Larry Thiessen and Director Collin Murdock for their most excellent work on the project.

Steve also won the Western Canadian Music Award award in 2008 for his Symphony Sessions CD.

Winnipeg Free Press

Christian singer, orchestra plan Christmas show, tour

February 21st, 2007

By Morley Walker

Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra audiences can expect the second coming of Steve Bell next Christmas. The local singer-songwriter, a cult hero among Christian audiences, enjoyed a breakthrough last November when his debut performance with the WSO sold out the Centennial Concert Hall and drew unqualified raves. Read the rest of this entry »

Winnipeg Free Press

Popular Christian singer to make debut with WSO

11/16 / 2006  / Morley Walker

WINNIPEG singer-songwriter Steve Bell is about to take a leap of faith into the church of high art.

On Friday night, while half the city is on a drunken Grey Cup binge, the popular Christian musician will make his debut with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra at the Centennial Concert Hall.
“This is the single greatest honour of my career,” says Bell, who will turn 46 that night. “There’s a natural affinity between religion and classical music. Both are about a deep appreciation of transcendent beauty.”

Secular market forces seem to agree with the sweet-singing tenor. The WSO is expecting a near-capacity crowd of 2,000. This is not too shabby, considering the orchestra struggles to get half that to one of its Masterworks concerts and this one-off special is not part of a subscription package.

“It’s going to be a community event,” says Bell, who will be playing with his regular sidemen, bassist Gilles Fournier, drummer Daniel Roy and pianist Michael Janzen. His old folk trio partners John Schritt and Tim Elias are also slated to make an appearance. “I owe my career to the efforts of hundreds of people,” Bell says, “and this will be a celebration of that”.

The East Kildonan resident earns what he calls an average income operating his own record company, Signpost Music. He performs 80 to 100 concerts a year (most as a solo act) to church audiences throughout Canada. On his own since 1988, he had not given any thought to creating an orchestral show until he was approached last spring by the WSO. It was, in fact, one of the musicians, violist Barbara Hamilton, who approached the administration with the idea. Bell quickly saw the opportunity, both to inject new life into his song catalogue and to expand his own audience base.

Orchestras are eager to do crossover shows with pop acts like Holly Cole and Anne Murray, but they need fleshed-out orchestral arrangements, which don’t grow on trees.
Bell commissioned Janzen, a Steinbach-born and raised musician who has a master’s degree in classical composition from the University of Toronto.

“Steve’s melodies are filled with beauty and wonder,” says Janzen, 35, who carves out a living as a pianist and composer in Toronto. “The orchestra has to breathe alongside them without taking over.”

Bell and Janzen have been working on the arrangements for five months. They’re happy with the 13 numbers they’ve got, including Bell’s audience favourites Burning Ember, Dark Night of the Soul and Here by the Water. But they won’t know for sure until the orchestra plays them for the first time in rehearsal at 1 p.m. the day of concert.

“These guys are actual musicians,” Bell says, “not just wannabes like the rest of us.”

Speaking of actual musicians, playing bassoon with the WSO for the Bell concert will be University of Manitoba prof Allen Harrington, who placed fourth last weekend at the International Saxophone Competition in Belgium.

Bell is a true independent in the mould of Celtic queen Loreena McKennitt. He and his manager, Dave Zeglinski, employ four people to oversee every aspect of the business, from recording and producing Bell’s albums to taking his show on the road.

Bell estimates that he has sold close to 300,000 copies of his 12 albums since 1988. Most of those have been sold at concert gigs, but in the last couple of years, he says, Internet sales have taken off. Many major-label acts see little return from even a platinum album (100,000 copies sold in Canada), but Bell says he can earn a living selling 10,000.

“I’d rather have a sense of sanity and control than a hit record,” says the father of three. “I want to still be doing this when I’m 60 or 70. I think I have a better chance of that if I’m operating at a grassroots level.”

Larry Leblanc, the Toronto-based Canadian bureau chief of the U.S. music industry magazine Billboard, says Bell knows exactly what he’s doing. “He understands all aspects of the business,” Leblanc says. “That’s rare among musicians.” As for the age-old argument that Bell is limiting himself by accepting the designation “Christian musician,” Leblanc isn’t sure that holds. “I’d argue that the music industry is now a world of niches,” Leblanc says. “Steve has mastered his.”

But Bell believes you needn’t buy into the idea of heaven to appreciate what he does.

“I think good art can increase a person’s capacity for wonder,” he says. “In our cynical age, I would hope my music would massage that atrophied capacity just a bit for both theists and atheists.”