Dr Joel Bell - Director 

A Berklee scholar, Joel wandered from his Jazz path after a decade spent playing with everyone from Even Parker and Lionel Loueke through to Maori Shamen, poets, classical and near and far eastern musicians during a 13-year residency at London’s Club Inegales with Peter Wiegold - a leader in innovation around conducted improvisation and cross-cultural music making.

His composition studies began at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire under the father of fusion music, John Mayer, but it was composing for the Atlas Ensemble (a 30-piece orchestra showcasing the foremost artists from world traditions) that led him to an intense period of study, drawing out new innovations in guitar technique. Resurrecting Mississippi Fred Mcdowell’s ‘half-slide’ technique allowed the pioneering incorporation of micro-inflections drawn from music of the Near and Far East, and a quest to emulate the shamanistic cry of the Indian Sarangi.

In 2011 Joel completed his PhD research focussing on a portfolio of pieces exploring impact points between composition and improvisation under the supervision of Richard Barrett and Peter Wiegold. 

Joel is featured on Notes Inegales albums Envoi, Expect the Unexpected, Van Diemens Land (with  mercury nominated singer Sam Lee), Christophe Fellay’s In Petto and with Kate Halsall on Horizontal Transfer and Miniaturised Concertos. He has written for Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Piano Circus, jazz pianist Liam Noble, Southbank Sinfonia, Juliet Fraser, Atlas and Nieuw Ensembles, an arrangement of Varese’s ‘Amerique’ and a reworking of Elliot Carter materials with electric jazz trio featuring saxophonist Tim Garland. Concerts and festivals have been in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Europe and the UK. Joel has premiered music by Michael Finissey, performed with the BBC Singers the music of Arvo Part (to the composer) and James Tenney, as well as being broadcast by BBC Radio 3, BBC Arabic, Swiss and Korean radio and also spoken about musical symmetry on BBC Radio 4.

Joel has lectured and examined on rock, pop, contemporary music, jazz and world music at Kent and Brunel universities (where he also directs the Brunel Fusion Ensemble). He has been a speaker on improvisation, his work and music at academic conferences across the world and on BBC Radio 4. He has written and led innovative undergraduate improvisation and performances modules embracing contemporary and cross-cultural disciplines and mentored Masters students and young professionals at Brunel University, Leeds College of Music and Peter Wiegold's Academy Inegales. He directed the five day intensive residential improvisation course at Benslow music and is an advocate for alternative pedagogy and the traditional apprentice system. 

At present he leads the GOKUMI Ensemble, a radical group spanning jazz, world, post-classical and folk traditions.