National Music Centre
The National Music Centre’s Studio Bell opened in 2016 on Canada Day, July 1, 2016, with an estimated 5600 people attending. Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo and Great Big Sea’s Alan Doyle performed at the official opening.
National Music Centre’s space showcases the collection, which includes over 2,000 rare instruments and artifacts including the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, the TONTO synthesizer, and one of Elton John’s pianos, along with the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame collections. Its interior is clad with 226,000 custom glazed terracotta tiles which were made in Germany and fired in the Netherlands.
The centre organizes interactive education programming, artist incubation, exhibitions and performances daily, as well as an artist-in-residence program.
Features of the National Music Centre include broadcast facilities of the CKUA Radio Network and a 300-seat performance hall that has already hosted a variety of events, including one of the Tragically Hip’s last concerts. Included as part of the centre is the historic King Edward Hotel, which was dismantled and rebuilt, and operates as a seven nights a week live music venue.
The National Music Centre also houses a world-class recording studio, featuring three control rooms and three live rooms. The organization maintains a “living collection” — musical instruments and equipment submitted as museum pieces which are professionally maintained to be fully operational in a studio environment. This gives artists and engineers recording at the facility the opportunity to use and experiment with a plethora of historical equipment, ranging from a 400-year-old harpsicord to TONTO, the first (and largest) multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer ever created.
