Kathleen Carter Bell, D.M.

About Kathleen

Dr. Kathleen Carter Bell is an active educator and performer based in Amarillo, Texas, where she teaches at West Texas A&M University. Prior to relocating, Bell served as Lecturer of Oboe at Tennessee State University and Auburn University. Bell, who is Principal Oboist with the Lubbock Symphony Orchestra, is also oboe faculty for Indiana University’s Summer Music Clinic, the West Texas A&M Band and Orchestra Camp, and has taught multiple summers at the Interlochen.

Bell is a regular performer with Chamber Music Amarillo, the Amarillo Opera, the Amarillo Symphony, and the West Texas Symphony, and has given solo and chamber recitals across the United States and abroad. Her trio, Elicio Winds, has been awarded several grants and their first CD, Convergence: Music and Cultural Legacy, was released in November 2023. Recent and upcoming solo and chamber performances include a Chamber Music Amarillo performance of the Vaughan Williams Oboe Concerto, the National Flute Association Conference (Chicago), the College Music Society National Conferences (Rochester, Miami, Washington D.C.), the International Double Reed Society Conference (Boulder, Flagstaff), the International Clarinet Association Conference (Denver), and the Music by Women Festival (Mississippi). Bell recently published several pedagogical articles in music education journals and in spring 2024, she was named Review Editor for the International Alliance for Women in Music Journal. An advocate of new music, Bell has recently collaborated with multiple female composers to commission and premiere new works for oboe. Her final D.M. document, From Dionysus to Die Walküre: The Ancient Greek Aulos as a Key to Wagner’s Writing for the Oboe and English Horn, was commended by her Indiana University doctoral committee as a “Dissertation of High Distinction.” In 2012, Bell was awarded the IU Barbara and David H. Jacobs Fellowship, granted for “excellence and leadership in the world of music.”

My teaching primary teaching goal is to foster independent musicians who have strong convictions about what they want to say musically and the necessary skills to share those ideas in performance. I focus on honing fundamentals, teaching objective processes for reed-making, and encouraging a thoughtful and detailed approach to performance, all in a supportive and collaborative learning environment.