He is the founder of the Vocal Arts Acoustical Research Group at the University of Calgary, where he currently serves on the voice faculty.
He later studied singing with Edith Boroschek [de] in Düsseldorf from 1967 to 1976, and with Richard Miller at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music from 1985 to 1990.
From 1958 to 1961 he was heard annually at the Bayreuth Festival as the Night Watchman in Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
In 1961 he portrayed Ford in Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff in a CBC Television production starring Louis Quilico in the title role.
[1] During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bell was frequently heard as a soloist in choral-orchestral works with major symphony orchestras.
In 1959 he was a soloist in two different presentations of George Frideric Handel's Messiah: one in Lucerne with conductor Thomas Beecham and the other in Berlin under the baton of Malcolm Sargent.