Dylan Bell voice, piano, guitar, bass, percussion
Suba Sankaran voice, piano, percussion
Multifaceted musicians Suba Sankaran and Dylan Bell join forces to create the FreePlay Duo. Described as “inspired eclecticism”, Dylan and Suba will take you from the concert halls of Europe, to the jazz clubs of Manhattan, to the temples of India, and back to the cultural mosaic of their native Toronto… all without leaving your seat. From Bach to Bird to the Beatles, Dylan and Suba effortlessly cross musical boundaries, continually combining and recombining sounds to create a concert of endless variety, with the intimate delivery of two people. Imagine Simon and Garfunkel crossed with a Bach 2-part invention… or an acrobatic jazz melody combined with ancient Indian solkattu… or an 8-part vocal arrangement created by two singers, using innovative live-looping techniques… and you’ll get a glimpse of what the Duo has to offer.
Dylan and Suba first met in Toronto in 1993, singing in a jazz choir at York University called “Wibijazz’n'”: soon after, they started directing the choir together. At their year-end concert, Dylan and Suba performed an a cappella “director’s duet”, and the Duo was born. What started as a typical voice-and-piano jazz duo began to evolve: more instruments were added, and more musical styles explored, to create a duo unique in its musical depth and variety.
The FreePlay Duo’s uniquely diverse concert program has taken them across Canada and around the world, with stops all across Europe, Scandinavia, South Asia and the Far East. Their self-titled debut album was released in May 2009.
Partners offstage as well as onstage, Dylan and Suba delight in exploring music together, and in bringing this joy to audiences worldwide.