Dennis Scheel Music

You might be wondering right now if I am brand new at composing music. The short answer is "No, I'm not, but I am new to concept of putting myself out there online."

The long answer is... I hail from Cambridge, Ontario, Canada and have been a community tuba player for nearly 40 years and a composer officially for nearly 30 of these years. The works that I have composed over this time frame are small in number due to my day job and family commitments not affording me nearly as much time as I would like to dedicate to this craft. Also, the works that I have written have all been publicly performed and in some cases professionally recorded by ensembles which I am or have been a member of, which means for every performance of any of them, I was on stage performing with them. I have yet to be in the audience for one of my premieres. The honest truth about my story is that while I have never been shy about bringing my works to band and orchestra leaders for consideration, I also mistakenly believed that the only way to achieve success in this field is to get published by a large well known music publishing company. Up until now I confess that I was not brave enough to approach any of them, even with incidentally having famous Canadian Composer/Arranger Howard Cable tell me about one of my works "Take it to ******** Music Publishing. Tell 'em I sent you." I realize that I royally messed up that one!

But I digress. I have recently learned that the way the "cool kids" do it nowadays is to open up your own website and self publish. So here I am! Sure, the most ideal time for me to do this would have been decades ago, but the second best time...is now!

So the next big question is "Who am I and how did I become educated musically?" Not unlike most people I started off in Grade 7 in instrumental band studies. When I graduated Secondary School I was accepted into the Music Faculty of McGill University in Montréal, Quebec in which I pursued a Licentiate in Music Diploma in Performance. It was at this juncture that I had my first ever performance of an original composition. This was a piece for the school's Trombone/Tuba Choir and I cheekily titled it "Opus One."

The bands and orchestras I have played with included The Mississauga Youth Orchestra, The Mississauga Symphony, The Etobicoke Philharmonic (still a current member), Orchestra Toronto (not to be confused with the Toronto Symphony),The Band of the Royal Regiment of Canada in which I was an on strength member (Rank, Corporal), The Cambridge Concert Band, The Kitchener-Waterloo Community Orchestra, and perhaps the highlight of my combined performance and compositional achievements The Wellington Wind Symphony (which I am a current member and hope to remain one until I die). This tremendously talented and accomplished ensemble welcomed me with open arms and exposed me to all kinds of phenomenal music that has kicked off a tidal wave of inspiration for composition and playing. In February, 2023 for one of their concerts they we're kind enough to World Premiere 'Soldiers of the Maple Leaf' which was an astonishing success and garnered me my first ever standing ovation for the performance of my works. It is this overall experience with WWS that has awakened a desire to experiment with different ways of making sound.

Up until recently I have always been known as a throwback era composer, as I have always been drawn to Romantic Era simplicity of steady and predictable form combined with powerful programmatic and often biographical storylines. If you enjoy listening to a great Tchaikovsky work, than I am confident that you will also enjoy my style of writing

This is the journey I hope you all will join me on, a great experiment that combines these two music styles together! I look forward to making a musical connection with all who come to visit this page!