Allan Gordon Bell was born in Calgary in 1953. He received a Master of Music degree from the University of Alberta where he studied with Violet Archer, Malcolm Forsyth, and Manus Sasonkin. He also did advanced studies in composition at the Banff Centre for the Arts where his teachers were Jean Coulthard, Bruce Mather, and Oskar Morawetz. Bell has created works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, orchestra, band, and electro-acoustic media, as well as an opera. His music has been performed by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Esprit Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra the Orford String Quartet, eighth blackbird, the ensembles of Toronto New Music Concerts, Arraymusic, Soundstreams Canada, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, New Works Calgary and Lands End Chamber Music as well as many other professional and amateur organizations in North America, Europe and Asia. Bell is Professor of Music at the University of Calgary, an Associate Composer and Past-President of the Canadian Music Centre, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Member of the Order of Canada.