Edwin Barker

Last updated

Edwin Barker is an American double bass player who graduated from the New England Conservatory. He is Principal Double Bass with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Associate Professor of Music at Boston University College of Fine Arts. [1]

Contents

Career

Barker graduated with honors from the New England Conservatory in 1976, where he studied double bass with Henry Portnoi. That same year, while a member of the Chicago Symphony, he was appointed at age twenty-two to the position of principal bassist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Barker is a sought-after solo/ensemble performer and musician, having performed all around in the world in North America, Europe and, Asia.

He is a frequent guest performer with the Boston Chamber Music Society in Boston's Jordan Hall. Barker continues to tour and perform internationally with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and has recorded with both groups and Collage, a Boston-based contemporary music ensemble. He is also an accomplished editor, having done his own edition of the bass parts for Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 31 and Gustav Mahler's Symphonies No. 1 and No. 2 at the online publisher Ovation Press. [2]

In July 1995, he was chosen by Maestro Sir Georg Solti to lead the bass section of the United Nations' orchestra "Musicians of the World." Barker performed the world premiere of James Yannatos' Bass Concerto (which was written especially for him) with Alea III and subsequently with Collage. He was the featured soloist at the New England premiere of Gunther Schuller's Bass Concerto, conducted by the composer, with the Boston Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Barker's major teaching affiliations include the Tanglewood Music Center, Boston University and the New England Conservatory of Music. [3]

Barker inaugurated the 100th Anniversary Season of the Boston Symphony Orchestra with a solo performance of the Koussevitsky bass concerto, a performance the Boston Globe praised as having possessed "everything that makes great artistry - tone, technical equipment, temperament, repose, a keen sense of rhythm, and fine conception." [ citation needed ] Other solo engagements include appearances at Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, Carnegie Recital Hall's "Sweet and Low" series, and recitals at major universities and conferences throughout the world. His other engagements have included solo appearances with the Boston Classical Orchestra as well as with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston and in Europe. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oliver Knussen</span> British composer and conductor

Stuart Oliver Knussen was a British composer and conductor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Adès</span> British composer, pianist and conductor

Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).

John Harris Harbison is an American composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and large choral works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston University Tanglewood Institute</span> School in Lenox, Massachusetts, US

The Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) is a summer music training program for students age 10 to 20 in Lenox, Massachusetts, under the auspices of the Boston University College of Fine Arts.

Douglas Yeo is an American bass trombonist who played in the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 2012, where he held the John Moors Cabot Bass Trombone Chair. He was also on the faculty of the New England Conservatory. In 2012 he retired from the BSO and accepted a position as professor of trombone at the Arizona State University School of Music, a position he held until 2016. In 2019, he was appointed to the faculty of Wheaton College (Illinois).

David Sartor is an American composer, conductor, and educator, and is the founder and music director of the Parthenon Chamber Orchestra.

Bernard Rands is a British-American contemporary classical composer. He studied music and English literature at the University of Wales, Bangor, and composition with Pierre Boulez and Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt, Germany, and with Luigi Dallapiccola and Luciano Berio in Milan, Italy. He held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Illinois, and the University of York before emigrating to the United States in 1975; he became a U.S. citizen in 1983. In 1984, Rands's Canti del Sole, premiered by Paul Sperry, Zubin Mehta, and the New York Philharmonic, won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He has since taught at the University of California, San Diego, the Juilliard School, Yale University, and Boston University. From 1988 to 2005 he taught at Harvard University, where he is Walter Bigelow Rosen Professor of Music Emeritus.

Chien-Kwan Lin is a classical saxophonist and teacher.

Heinz Karl "Nali" Gruber, who styles himself HK Gruber professionally, is an Austrian composer, conductor, double bass player and singer. He is a leading figure of the so-called Third Viennese School.

Steven A. Ansell is an American violist whose career involves work as a chamber musician, solo artist, and orchestral musician. He is the principal violist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a position he has held since September 1996. Prior to his appointment, Ansell had already appeared with the orchestra as a guest soloist. He also teaches at the Boston University College of Fine Arts and is a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. He is a founding member of the Muir String Quartet.

Yevgeny Kutik is a Belarusian-American concert violinist whose career debuted in 2003 with an appearance with the Boston Pops and Maestro Keith Lockhart, an honor awarded to him as the 1st prize recipient of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Competition Since then, Kutik has appeared worldwide playing solo recitals and concertos with orchestras. He has also won numerous awards including the 2006 Salon de Virtuosi Grant, and the Tanglewood Music Center Jules Reiner Violin Prize. In addition to being a concert violinist, Kutik is also a keynote speaker/representative for the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) Speakers Bureau.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynn Chang</span> Chinese American violinist

Lynn Chang is a Chinese American violinist known for his work as both a soloist and a chamber musician. Chang is a founding member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and is currently a faculty member at MIT, Boston University, the Boston Conservatory, and the New England Conservatory of Music.

William Jay Sydeman was a prolific American composer. He was born in New York. He studied at Duke University, and received a B.S. degree in 1955 from the Mannes School of Music, having studied with Felix Salzer, Roy Travis, and Roger Sessions. He received his master's in music from the Hartt School in 1958, studying under Arnold Franchetti and Goffredo Petrassi. From 1959 to 1970 he joined the composition faculty at his alma mater Mannes School of Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Schwendinger</span> Mexican composer

Laura Elise Schwendinger was the first composer to win the American Academy in Berlin's Berlin Prize.

Stefan Jackiw is an American classical violinist.

Randall Hodgkinson is an American classical pianist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory Mertl</span> American composer

Gregory Mertl is an American composer that has garnered commissions from the Tanglewood Music Center (1999), the Rhode Island Philharmonic (2000), the Tarab Cello Ensemble (2001), the Phoenix Symphony (2001), the Wind Ensembles of the Big Ten Universities (2002), the Ostrava Oboe Festival, Czech Republic, Kenneth Meyer and the Hanson Institute (2006), the University of Oregon (2013), CSTMA (2013), counter)induction (2016), the University of Niš (2016), and the Barlow Endowment for a piano concerto for pianist Solungga Liu and the University of Minnesota Wind Ensemble, Craig Kirchhoff, conductor, which was premiered in November, 2011 and released by Bridge Records in May 2017.

The Missouri Chamber Music Festival and Adult Chamber Music Intensive (ACMI) was founded in 2010. The goal of the MOCM Festival concerts is to present the fine art of small ensemble music to a wide audience through an accessible, community-based festival. The ACMI workshop is the educational portion of the festival, placing adult instrumentalists in chamber ensembles with Festival artists for coaching and performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franziska Huhn</span> Musical artist

Franziska Huhn is a German harpist. Currently, she lives in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin de Raaff</span> Dutch composer

Robin de Raaff is a Dutch composer and bassist. He has written five symphonies, eleven concertos, an oratorio entitled Atlantis, and two main stage operas. The last opera Waiting for Miss Monroe is about the tragic death of Marilyn Monroe sung by American soprano Laura Aikin. The first opera RAAFF is an opera about the complex relationship between the older Anton Raaff and the young M. in their struggle to create the world premiere of Idomeneo. Both operas were commissioned by Dutch National Opera coproduced by the Holland Festival.

References

  1. Boston University College of Fine Arts, Edwin Barker
  2. Ovation Press Editors, Edwin Barker
  3. "Boston Symphony Orchestra, Edwin Barker". Archived from the original on 2010-12-14. Retrieved 2011-02-03.
  4. Jason Heath's Double Bass Blog, Edwin Barker