JOBY BELL (b. 1968) has performed at the invitation of numerous chapters and conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Victoria Bach Festival, the Houston Masterworks Chorus, the Washington National Cathedral, and Conferences on Worship and Music at the Montreat Conference Center and at Lake Junaluska, N.C. His heavy concertizing throughout the United States has met with high acclaim, while his performances abroad have been enthusiastically received in Paris, Chartres, London, and throughout southern England, Scotland, Romania, and Hungary. His recital programming demonstrates a varied and interesting repertoire, enhanced by illuminating program notes designed to embrace all audiences.

Joby Bell has served the American Guild of Organists as a faculty member of Pipe Organ Encounters for young people, as dean of the Houston (Tex.) and Boone (N.C.) chapters, and from 2006-2010 as director of the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance. He garnered Second Prize and the Audience Prize in that same Competition in 2000. Since 2004, he has served on the faculty of the Hayes School of Music, Appalachian State University, where he teaches organ and sacred music studies. His teaching specializes in memorization and practice techniques, service playing, choral accompanying, and maintaining grace under pressure.

Joby Bell attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts, where he studied piano with Marian Hahn and Robert McDonald. He earned the Bachelor of Music degree in organ and piano from Appalachian State University and the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in organ from Rice University. His teachers include H. Max Smith and Clyde Holloway, organ, and Rodney Reynerson and Allen Kindt, piano. His doctoral thesis, “The Grand Organs of Notre-Dame and Saint-Sulpice, Paris: The Magna Opera of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll and a Critical Comparison of Their Alterations,” explored those important instruments’ tonal relationships and the subsequent changes made to them.

Dr. Bell previously served as Associate Director of Music for the Church of St. John the Divine and as Organist for St. Philip Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church, all in Houston. He also served as a vocal coach/accompanist at St. Agnes Academy, Strake Jesuit College Preparatory, and Houston Baptist University. Most recently, he served as Organist for the First Presbyterian Church of Lenoir, N.C.