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Lori Bell
Member Since: 2014 | Location: San Diego | Page Views: 2,806 
About Me
Flutist, pianist, composer, arranger - three time Global Music Award recipient
Brooklyn native Lori Bell is a flutist and composer of admirable depth and broad musical sympathies. A resident of San Diego, she has contributed to the development of higher standards of performance while earning acclaim from both peers and critics for her artistry on stage and in recordings. Bell is a three time Global Music Award recipient recognized for her recordings, compositions, and arrangements. Bell plays with confidence and taste, with a proclivity toward the more subtle means of emotional expression. Her playing inherently has a many-layered depth that reveals a more meaningful art. She renders ballads with exceptional sensitivity while bringing wonderful nuances to swing and be-bop, which she plays with power, agility and a natural élan. Her phrasing, evocative of birds, shows the strong influence of Eric Dolphy, yet is rendered with such purity of tone and range of timbre that it is clearly of a different ornithology. In 2016 Lori paid heartfelt tribute to her family and birthplace on her critically acclaimed album Brooklyn Dreaming earning four star ratings from Jazz Journal UK, Jazz Times, the Los Angeles Times (four and a half stars) and Downbeat, which chose it as “Best Albums of 2016.” Huffington Post also chose Brooklyn Dreaming for their “Best of Jazz 2016”. Bill Milkowski wrote in the March 2016 issue of Downbeat: “Bell flaunts prodigious chops on both C flute and alto flute, though her pen might be mightier than her sword. Her originals all reveal a wide harmonic palette, a sophisticated rhythmic sensibility and a refined sense of dynamics, along with an urge to swing.” Veteran jazz critic Scott Yanow chose it as one of his Top 25 Best jazz CD’s of 2016. It also won a Global Music Award for Outstanding Achievement for compositions and arrangements. Lori has toured throughout the United States playing festivals and clubs such as Birdland NYC, The Blue Note NYC, The Jazz Bakery LA, Catalina’s LA, The Gene Harris Jazz Festival, Jazz Summit 2 LA, and Jazz in the Pines festival. In 1994 and again in 2000 Lori toured Asia, including Singapore and Hong Kong. She has also performed in high profile ensemble settings at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, SOKA Performing Arts Center in Orange County, CA, The Wadsworth Theater at UCLA, and more recently, on a project of jazz arrangements and classical compositions for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Library. Recently Lori presented a program of arrangements Joe Henderson's compositions at SFJAZZ in the Joe Henderson Lab in April 2024. She has performed three times for the National Flute Association in 1996, 2011, and 2016. Lori has recorded 12 CD's as leader for such labels as Discovery Records, Beezwax Records, Azica Records, and Resonance Records. In addition to her global renown as a performer and recording artist, Lori is a respected force in music education. She is currently on the faculty as an Instructor of Flute/Jazz at San Diego State University and over the years, has privately taught hundreds of students of all ages in flute, piano (her secondary instrument), theory, composition and arranging at her studio in San Diego. She has taught master classes for the New York Flute Club, Columbia University, Mannes Music Conservatory NYC, The New School NYC, San Jose State University, Chico State, San Diego State University, UCLA, Utah State University, The National Flute Association 1989, 2003, 2016, University Wisconsin Green Bay, SDSU, San Diego Flute Guild, in Hong Kong and Singapore. While branding herself as an artist and performer who plays everything “from Bach to Bebop,” flutist Lori Bell’s musical muse extends even beyond those worlds. A musical chameleon by nature, she is continuously evolving and committed to pursuing her musical passions – the latest is a quartet concept called The Modern Line featuring original material and arrangements of modern jazz legends such as Joe Henderson, Woody Shaw and Bill Evans.
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This page was last updated on 2026-07-31.
