An Elvis Costello-hosted talk/music series developed by CTV is to air on the Sundance Channel in the U.S. and Channel 4 in the U.K.

Spectacle: Elvis Costello with… is a 13 x 60 series structured as a Canada/U.K. coproduction by Toronto-based Tri-Fi Productions and Elton John’s Rocket Pictures.

The CTV series, billed as an Inside the Actors Studio for musicians, will feature singer/songwriter Costello interviewing legendary and newcomer musicians on their art, not their personal lives.

Entertainment lawyer Jordan Jacobs, one of three Toronto producers behind Tri-Fi, says Costello will draw legendary artists out to reveal secrets of their craft.

‘They’ve all been interviewed a million times. The challenge is to get them to say something they haven’t said before,’ he explains.

The idea for a music master class series, which was scheduled to start production this month in New York City on the first four episodes, was originally hatched nearly a decade ago by Canadian music journalist Stephen Warden.

‘I’d always thought that people were fascinated by musicians and wanted to be a fly on the wall when sitting in the room while Keith Richards or Eric Clapton were being interviewed,’ Warden says.

Warden and Jacobs partnered on several treatments for the series, and then hooked up with Toronto-based film producer Martin Katz of Prospero Pictures, who knew Elton John and his partner, David Furnish of Rocket, after they worked together on a Toronto movie shoot.

John and Furnish in turn opened a conversation with Costello, who was widely agreed to be perfect as the series’ host, given his personality and music knowledge.

The Toronto producers and Furnish eventually sold CTV’s Ivan Fecan and Susanne Boyce on the project during a lunch in Los Angeles just over two years ago.

‘The idea of doing anything with Elton John is thrilling, and David [Furnish] helped connect the dots,’ Boyce, CTV’s president, creative, content and channels, recalls of that brain-storming lunch.

Boyce adds that Spectacle will diverge from the garden-variety interview formats on MTV or MuchMusic to both illuminate and explain the building blocks of music inspiration for the world’s best-known musicians.

Sundance and Channel Four also signed on as partner broadcasters. And Alex Colletti, who produced and directed a 2006 CTV concert by Sam Roberts and Kanye West at the Masonic Temple in Toronto, has come on board.

The series’ producers intend to distribute select content from the Spectacle series on new media platforms.

They remain tight-lipped about the musicians to appear on the series’ first season, though they promise legends. There’s no word yet on when the series goes to air, or whether a second season is in the cards.

‘We all have our hands full. This is like planning a military invasion,’ Warden says.