Larry Bell

Larry Thomas Bell (born January 17, 1952) is an American composer, pianist and music professor. Education Bell was born in Wilson, North Carolina. He began his music studies with piano lessons and soon after began playing in a rock band. He attended East Carolina University and Appalachian State University, where he worked with Gregory Kosteck and earned his Bachelor of Music degree in 1974. He then moved to New York, where he attended The Juilliard School, completing his Master of Music degree in 1977 and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1982. While there he studied composition with Vincent Persichetti and Roger Sessions. A Guggenheim Fellowship (1981), Rome Prize (1982–3), and a Rockefeller grant (1985) took him to Italy, to study, write music, and take piano lessons with Joseph Rollino. On January 2, 1982, he married musicologist Andrea Olmstead. Teaching appointments Bell began teaching while in college, at the Juilliard Pre-College division (1979–1983). Since then he has been a faculty member of The Boston Conservatory (1980–2005), the New England Conservatory (1992–2018), and the Berklee College of Music (since 2007). Students have praised him "for his superlative teaching abilities, his talent for making complex issues understandable, his thoughtful approaches for gaining mastery of difficult skills, his wide-ranging musical knowledge, his musicianship, his patience, and his constant encouragement.". His composition students include Cynthia Wong, Forrest Eimold, George Li, Laura Schwindinger, Russ Grazier, Daniel Kharatian and Martin Matalon. Piano performance As a pianist, Bell performs his music regularly and has championed works by American composers. He has given recitals throughout the United States, as well as in Italy, Austria, and Japan. He is frequently heard on Boston's WGBH (FM) radio, where he played on their first live broadcast on the World Wide Web of his trio Mahler in Blue Light. He has performed as soloist on recordings of his Piano Concerto and Piano Sonata, and as an assisting artist on the recordings River of Ponds (the complete cello music), The Book of Moonlight (the complete violin music), Larry Bell Vocal Music, and Larry Bell: In the Garden of Dreams. One reviewer called his playing "commendable–-not flashy, but brimming with musicality, intelligence, and desire to communicate. Tone quality was fetching and finger technique clean.”