The Valley Concert Society is eagerly anticipating the program that tenor Isaiah Bell will perform at the Matsqui Centennial Auditorium on Friday, April 14, at 7:30 p.m.
Bell combines his beautiful, lyrical voice with a sharp intellect and a sensitive approach to his art to develop creative and thoughtful programs. Pianist Anna Cal will accompany him on the piano. She trained in Russia and Italy and is now a senior teacher at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.
While enjoying an international career he maintains strong connections with his roots in western Canada, having grown up in Fort St. John. He has opened the month of April with a performance of Mendelssohn’s Elijah presented by Symphony Nova Scotia. At the end of March, he sang the music of Bach and Handel with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Isaiah co-starred with the great baritone Thomas Hampson when he sang the role of Antinous in the world premiere of Rufus Wainwright’s opera Hadrian for the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. He has developed an affinity for the music of Benjamin Britten, George F. Handel, J.S. Bach.
Bell is a multi-talented artist. He has written and composed his own creative works. He co-created The Book of My Shames, a one-man cabaret opera, which has received a number of stagings, most recently with Opera Kelowna in February and in Vancouver and Victoria later this year.
Speaking and hosting masterclasses are some of the ways he contributes as a music educator. He has composed two operas and directed them with Opera NUOVA, a program for emerging artists in Edmonton.
During the pandemic year of 2020, he began a project of writing a haiku every day. This expanded into a daily art/music/poetry creation project. He is now working on his first novel.
Isaiah will bring all these diverse talents to the performance in Abbotsford. Together with Anna Cal, he has developed a creative new program for us entitled The Traveller based on the music of Robert Schumann, a composer whose work has touched him deeply.
This is a remarkable opportunity to enjoy the work of a brilliant creative mind. Tickets for the performance are available online at www.valleyconcertsociety.com at $32 for adults and $20 for students. For more information, call 604-289-3377.
I look forward to seeing you at the concert.
John Wiebe - President
The Valley Concert Society