Studio Bell looks like it was always meant to be there. It wasn’t, and the real story is a good one.
It starts in 1987, when the Carthy Organ was installed in Jack Singer Concert Hall. That pipe organ sparked an international organ festival and competition that ran from 1990 to 2002, according to the National Music Centre. One organ, and look what it set off.
From keyboards to a museum
In mid-1996 the Chinook Keyboard Centre began collecting keyboard instruments. Around 2000 the collection became the Cantos Music Museum and grew to include electronic instruments and sound equipment.
In 2003 Cantos and the festival’s organizers joined forces as the Cantos Music Foundation and moved into the historic Customs House on 11 Avenue SE.
In 2005, an exhibition marking 100 years of music in Alberta planted the seed for something bigger, and the National Music Centre says that idea pointed toward a national scope.
In February 2012, Cantos became the National Music Centre. Construction of the new building began in 2013.
Canada Day, 2016
Studio Bell opened to the public on Canada Day weekend in 2016. Calgary Arts Development reports a blessing ceremony by Casey Eagle Speaker, a performance by the Eya-Hey Nakoda drum group, and sets from Alan Doyle and Jim Cuddy.
More than 6,000 people came through in the first few days. That’s a proper welcome for a building that took 29 years to grow from a single organ.
We love this timeline. A national institution grew out of an organ, a keyboard centre and a stubborn habit of collecting.
That’s very Calgary. Start with one good idea, keep adding to it, and one day you’ve got a building on 4 Street SE.
Notice what the timeline leaves out: one big-bang moment. It’s a staircase, and each step made the next one possible.
So next time you walk through Studio Bell’s doors, think of that organ. Everything you’re looking at grew from it. Go say thanks.
Keep going with CKUA Started in a University Basement and We Love It or The Stampede Is Secretly Calgary’s Biggest Music Festival, whichever calls to you. Or try How One Organ Became Studio Bell for a change of pace.
If this one hooked you, we think The Edmonton Folk Music Festival Began as an Alberta Birthday Present and Calgary Once Hosted an Organ Competition With Its Own Mall Concerts are a good next read.
Quick answers
It started in 1987, when the Carthy Organ was installed in Jack Singer Concert Hall. That pipe organ sparked an international organ festival and competition that ran from 1990 to 2002, and in 2003 the festival’s organizers joined forces with Cantos as the Cantos Music Foundation.
In February 2012, Cantos became the National Music Centre. The collection began in mid 1996 with the Chinook Keyboard Centre, grew into the Cantos Music Museum around 2000, and construction of the new building began in 2013.
Studio Bell opened to the public on Canada Day weekend in 2016. Calgary Arts Development reports that more than 6,000 people came through in the first few days, a proper welcome for a building that took 29 years to grow from a single organ.
