Music Artists

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Internationally known violinist Joshua Bell has performed with all the major orchestras and is proficient in the works of Beethoven, Lalo, Tchaikovsky and Wieniawski. He is known for both his contemporary and classical repertoire. Joshua Bell was born in Indiana in 1967 and acquired an interest in playing the violin at an early age. By the age of 14 he had made his professional debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He studied under violinist Josef Gingold. After his debut performance his career took off. Although only a child when he first performed, his appearance was that of a serious, aspiring musician. In 1981 he won the Seventeen Magazine/ General Motors competition. From there he earned appearances with several orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philharmonic Orchestra of London and the London Symphony Orchestra. He has performed under such renowned conductors as Charles Dutoit, James Levine, Franz Welser-Most, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Herbert Blomstedt. During the 90s Joshua Bell signed an exclusive contract with Sony Classical. He recorded the works of George Gershwin with composer John Williams. On the album Listen to the Storyteller, he performs a violin solo in a work by Wynton Marsalis. His concert work, Chaconne, was written for him by composer John Corgliano, who also composed the music for the film The Red Violin. Joshua Bell’s musical interests lie both with classical composers and living composers. In 1993 he performed a violin concerto by British composer Nicholas Maw and more recently a work titled Air by American composer Aaron Jay Kernis. Short Trip Home followed in 1999. Most of Joshua Bell’s time is devoted to concerts and recitals. During a season, he performs more than 100 concerts worldwide. He has played with the NHK Symphony in Tokyo, Orchestre National de France, the Danish Radio Orchestra and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. Because of his flexibility in playing both classical and contemporary music, Joshua Bell has made quite a name for himself as a violinist. For two months in 1997 he performed with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in a tour beginning at Carnegie Hall. The tour consisted of chamber music and concertos. In his love for chamber music he organized an annual winter music festival in London. Performers have included Yefim Bronfman, Steven Isserlis and the Orion String Quartet. Joshua Bell has been performing for more than 15 years. One of his most praised accomplishments is his cadenzas for violin concertos. He has written cadenzas for Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart. His musical genius has inspired him to create new works. Joshua Bell remains a prolific violinist. He has appeared on CBS This Morning, The Tonight Show and A&E’s Biography. Joshua Bell, with a violin named “Tom Taylor,” has become a household name among classical musicians. ~ Kim Summers, All Music Guide
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A group of quirky, fun-loving emo rockers from California, Hellogoodbye seem to take as much influence from modern pop-punk as they do from the original Nintendo sound bleeps that held children captive in the late ’80s. Formed by high school friends in 2002, the group’s playful brand of indie power pop is infused with sugary sweetness, catchy dance beats, and enough energy to tire a group of five-year-olds. Hellogoodbye , named after a quote from Saved by the Bell’s Screech Powers, is composed of vocalist/guitarist Forrest Kline, bassist Marcus Cole, keyboardist Jesse Kurvink, and drummer Chris Profeta. First releasing their self-titled EP for free download on their label’s website, the physical album hit stores with an additional track in November 2004 on Drive Thru (where Kline used to intern). The move worked to the band’s advantage and their music quickly spread; the single “Shimmy Shimmy Quarter Turn” made minor waves on MTV and garnered the band a pretty notable following for having only a handful of songs to their name. Extensive touring commenced, joining up for gigs (which often included water guns, confetti, and costumes) with bands like the Format and the All-American Rejects. The music video/live DVD OMG HGB DVD ROTFL appeared in the fall of 2005, and by the year’s end, the band had won the on-air MTV Dew Circuit Breakout contest, beating Over It and Tub Ring in the end. Early 2006 was spent playing sold-out nationwide dates as openers for the Academy Is… before hooking up with Motion City Soundtrack and Straylight Run in the spring for the MTVU Campus Invasion Tour. A spot on May’s Bamboozle festival preceded a summer spent on the Warped Tour. All this activity ultimately led up to the release of their highly anticipated full-length Zombies! Aliens! Vampires! Dinosaurs!, which finally hit stores that August. ~ Corey Apar, All Music Guide
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Santana was formed originally in 1966 in San Francisco, California. Originally named The Santana Blues Band, they rose to international fame when they performed at the Woodstock festival in 1969. This led to their second studio album, Abraxas (1970), becoming a Latin-Rock standard and a huge critical and commercial success. Over the years their line-up has changed constantly, allowing them to evolve with the times. Over 50 musicians have been in Santana over its 40 year history, but the only constant has been Carlos Santana himself. Various successful bands have been spawned by Santana, most notably Journey, formed by keyboardist Gregg Rolie and guitarist Neal Schon, both key members of Santana’s early days. Following a brief quiet period in the early 1990s, Santana has returned to stardom by releasing two successful albums featuring various guest vocalists, Shaman and Supernatural.

Santana’s original drummer Michael Shrieve was one of the youngest performers at the Woodstock Music Festival in the year 1969 at only 19 years of age.
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The Used is an American rock band from Orem, Utah. Their sound has been classified under many sub-genres of rock. They signed with Reprise Records in late 2001 and rose to fame in June 2002 after releasing their debut self-titled album, The Used . Soon after a CD/DVD package named “Maybe Memories” was released containing unheard demos and a “behind the scenes” story of the band/band’s past. They followed up with their second album, In Love and Death, in September 2004 and their third album, Lies For The Liars, in May 2007. An EP, Shallow Believer, was released in February 2008 that featured most of the band’s B-sides to date. They have spent the entire year of 2008 working on their fourth studio album, Artwork, which was released September 1st, 2009. The band has achieved both Gold and Platinum statuses in over 6 countries worldwide.

A few years ago, while preparing to send the album art for b-side collection Shallow Believer to his record label, Bert McCracken scrawled the word “Artwork” across its cover in silver ink. The sentiment, which, to Bert and his bandmates in The Used , resonated with both extreme simplicity and indescribable complexity, said everything without really having to say anything. Now, the Utah band has titled their fourth full-length album with that very word: Artwork.
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Rising from humble beginnings in the small town of Charlemagne, Quebec, Celine Dion became one of the biggest international stars in pop music history, selling more than 100 million albums worldwide. The youngest in Adhemar and Therese Dion’s family of 14 children, Dion grew up in an environment full of the inherent chaos and material austerity that comes with such a large working-class family. However, the Dion household was also one filled with love for children and music, and her parents and siblings were important figures in the early development of her singing career. Celine began singing in her parents’ piano bar when she was just five years old. By the age of 12 she had written one of her first songs, “Ce N’etait Qu’un Rêve” (It Was Only a Dream), which she recorded with the help of her mother and brother and shipped off to a manager named René Angélil, whose name they found on the back of an album by Ginette Reno, a popular Francophone singer. After weeks with no response from Angélil, Celine’s brother Michel phoned him and said, “I know you haven’t listened to the tape, because if you had, you would’ve called right away.” Angélil dug up the tape and called the family back the same day to set up a meeting with Celine. When the 12-year-old performed in his office in Montreal, Angélil cried and set in motion the process of making her a québécois, and later international, star. He mortgaged his house to pay for her first two albums, producing a local number one single. In 1983 she became the first Canadian to have a gold record in France and she won a gold medal at the Yamaha songwriting competition in Japan. Her worldwide reputation was in the making, but success in the United States was not yet forthcoming. When she was 18, Dion saw Michael Jackson performing on television and told Angélil that she wanted to be a star like him. Angélil’s response was to order her to take 18 months off to remake her image. Dion underwent a physical transformation, cutting her hair, plucking her eyebrows, and having her teeth capped to cover up the incisors that had caused a Quebec humor magazine to dub her “Canine Dion.” She was also sent off to English school to polish the language that would help her to break into the American market. When she emerged from this process, she had made an amazing transformation from teen star to adult chanteuse. The payoff came almost immediately. Her 1990 breakthrough album, Unison, was released in the U.S. by Epic Records and produced several hit songs, but it was her duet with Peabo Bryson on the theme song of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast that was her true breakthrough. “Beauty and the Beast” reached number one on the pop charts and won both a Grammy and Academy award. The song was also featured on her second English album, 1992’s Celine Dion , which launched another Top Ten American hit with “If You Asked Me To,” while spawning two additional Top 40 singles, “Nothing Broken But My Heart” and “Love Can Move Mountains.” During this time there were also important developments in Dion’s personal life. In 1988 Angélil crossed the line from manager to romantic partner when he kissed Dion one night after a show in Dublin. Fearful that fans would find the 26-year difference in their ages unsettling, the couple kept their relationship a secret for several years. But their 1994 wedding in Montreal’s Notre Dame Basilica was celebrated not only by the 250 invited guests, but by millions of fans worldwide.One of the hardest-working stars in show business, Dion continued to record and perform on a schedule that would kill most people. She recorded six albums between 1992 and 1996, when her album Falling Into You took her to a new level of stardom. The recording was a runaway hit, winning Grammys for both Album of the Year and Best Pop Album. 1996 also brought her another honor; she was asked to perform at the opening ceremonies of the Atlanta Olympics. Dion’s longest tenure on the pop charts would come the following year, however, when she recorded “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song for James Cameron’s blockbuster movie Titanic. “My Heart Will Go On” became omnipresent on the radio as Titanic fever swept the world, and when it was featured on her album Let’s Talk About Love, it helped propel that recording to the top of the charts. By then, Dion had the power to gather a supporting cast of stars, and the album contained an amazing collection of artists, including Barbra Streisand, Luciano Pavarotti, and the Bee Gees. The album would win a host of awards and bring Dion a whole new world of fans.Her appearance on VH1’s Divas Live special with Aretha Franklin, Gloria Estefan, Mariah Carey, and Shania Twain proved popular as well and helped solidify Dion’s position among not only current female pop singers but historical greats like Franklin. The continuing popularity of her recordings and live performances made her 1999 sabbatical seem like a tragedy to her fans, but Dion needed a break after more than a decade and a half of breakneck pace. In 1999, her husband Angélil was diagnosed with throat cancer. While the disease responded well to treatment and went into remission, the illness was a wake-up call for Dion, who decided to put a new emphasis on her family life and announced a temporary retirement so that she could spend more time at home and have a child. After undergoing fertility treatments, she gave birth to a son in January 2001. The Collector’s Series, Vol. 1 was released during Dion’s hiatus; it featured many of her best-loved songs, as well as a Spanish-language version of “All by Myself.”Dion returned to the public eye in a big way in March 2002 with A New Day Has Come. The album debuted at number one in over 17 countries, and was accompanied by a full-scale media blitz. But Dion’s greatest challenge was yet to come. Despite millions of albums sold, the adoration of fans worldwide, and the validation of her peers, Dion’s success was still hampered by image problems that had dogged her since the days of “Canine Dion.” While many Americans adored her, just as many snickered at her québécois heritage and the relative the unorthodoxy of her marriage. There was also the issue of her relevancy to lucrative audiences existing outside of her pop vocal constituency. To combat these issues, Dion and her management made a series of bold moves that attempted to solidify her career and ensure its continuity as she entered her mid-thirties. In early 2002, Dion announced a three-year, 600-show contract to appear five nights a week in an entertainment extravaganza at Caesers Palace, Las Vegas, called A New Day. The production would take place in a custom-built, 4,000-seat theater and would feature Dion as the centerpiece of a multimedia program designed and orchestrated by Franco Dragone, the Belgian theater impresario behind the modern circus phenomenon Cirque du Soleil. The project united Dion, her label Sony Music, Dragone’s production company Creations du Dragon, Caesars parent Park Place Entertainment, and promoter Concerts West in a landmark multi-million-dollar alliance that hinged on Dion’s ability to put fans in seats five nights a week for three years. In conjunction with the rollout of A New Day was an endorsement deal with German automaker DaimlerChryslter AG worth additional millions. The campaign placed Dion in a series of stylish black-and-white advertisements promoting the stylish allure of Chrysler’s line of upscale automobiles. The performer also recorded a brand-new song to accompany the spots. Debuting in early 2003, the campaign dovetailed into the March release of One Heart, Dion’s first album since 2001’s A New Day Has Come, which in turn heralded the opening of A New Day on March 25, 2003. That live Las Vegas show was documented on the summer 2004 release New Day: Live in Las Vegas, which was followed a few months later by Miracle, a collection of family songs designed as a tandem book/CD project between Dion and photographer Anne Geddes. The two-CD compilation On Ne Change Pas appeared in 2005, featuring her most popular French-language songs and a new collaboration with the operatic pop vocal foursome Il Divo, “I Believe in You (Je Crois en Toi).” A new French-language album, D’Elles, arrived in May 2007 and debuted at the top of the Canadian album chart. In November of that same year, Dion released the English-language Taking Chances and announced a tour of South Africa and Europe scheduled for 2008. ~ Stacia Proefrock, All Music Guide

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