Robert “Bob” Bell in a 2018 visit to the Berlin Philharmonie. Photo courtesy of Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts.
In Sunday’s (4/20) Toledo Blade, Mike Sigov writes, “Robert ‘Bob’ Bell, a music performer, teacher, administrator, and president emeritus of Toledo Symphony, died Tuesday in Hospice of Northwest Ohio … He was 86. The family did not report the cause of death…. Zak Vassar, president and CEO of the Toledo Alliance for Performing Arts and a lifelong friend, said, ‘Nobody can have a conversation today about the Toledo Symphony without also having a conversation about Bob.’… Mr. Bell retired as the symphony’s president and CEO in 2010 after several years on the job. Previously, he for many years was the managing director of the orchestra, where he was first hired in 1957 as a musician…. The musicians, staff, and board of the Toledo Symphony said they had lost ‘a beloved colleague, visionary leader, master timpanist, and the heart and soul of our institution for nearly 70 years….’ Born Dec. 2, 1938, in Oakwood, Ohio … he attended Woodward High School, where in 1953 he became a percussionist in the school band … Mr. Bell played in both the band and school orchestra and at the same time at the Toledo Youth Orchestra … After that came studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music…. He later studied music at the University of Michigan and then was hired at Toledo Symphony [as musician and administrator] … He was also a member of the music faculty at the University of Toledo.”
