Dan Bell

Daniel (Dan) Bell taught for 34 years in the districts of Fort Lupton (CO), Rangeview HS (Aurora), and Cheyenne Mountain (Colorado Springs) as a high school assistant and junior high band director. Dan - now retired - is happily married to his wife, Kari and has 3 kids, Ryan, Katie, and Kyle; grandson Johnny, and granddaughter Kirby. Mr. Bell is a proud University of Iowa and Colorado State University alumnus. In the past 26 years, Mr. Bell’s jazz and symphonic bands have been selected to perform for the Colorado Music Educators Clinic/Conference fourteen times. He is the director of the Pinnacle Jazz Band, an intermediate jazz band with the youth symphony in Colorado Springs, and the Ascent Big Band, the advanced jazz band.

Dan currently teaches private lessons to brass students and makes appearances at many Colorado schools to help out when available. He is also the director of the Peak Big Band - an adult jazz band in the Colorado Springs area - that performs throughout the year. Dan has also been the band director at the CMU (Colorado Mesa University) Summer Middle School Music Camp for the past 10 years, and periodically as a staff member at CMU for Jazz Utopia. Dan has conducted over 50 honor bands in Colorado. He is an experienced adjudicator at jazz and concert festivals and competitions, and has presented workshops and clinics for IAJE’s Teacher Training Institute in Kansas City, the Wyoming Music Educators All-State Convention, Colorado Bandmasters Association summer convention, and the Colorado Music Educators Association conference and clinic. Mr. Bell was also the Music Director for the 2010 Colorado Association of String Teachers Association (CASTA) camp. Dan was picked as the “Teacher of the Year” in the Spring of 2011 by the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony Guild, was awarded the Distinguished Fine Arts Educator of the Year by the Colorado Springs Arts and Business Consortium in 2006, was awarded as “Outstanding Project of the Year” – along with Jack Yonce - by the Arts and Business Consortium in 2016 for the Futures Concert in D12. Dan was given the “Citation of Excellence in Teaching” by the National Band Association in May of 2014. Mr. Bell is a member of CMEA, JEN, CBA, Phi Beta Mu, Phi Mu Alpha, NAfME, and ASBDA. Mr. Bell conducted the musicals at Cheyenne Mountain High School for 23 years,

Dan was recently elected to the Colorado Bandmasters Association (CBA) Hall of Fame, was inducted into the Pikes Peak Music Educator Hall of Fame, and was awarded the Outstanding Bandmaster Award from Phi Beta Mu, a professional music fraternity.