Barker, Edwin

Double bassist who attended grade school in Plattsburgh, New York, and sort of fell into playing the bass by accident. His music instructor, Angelo LaMariana, was a professor at State University Teacher’s college. Angelo asked him whether he wanted to play bass, and he thought he was talking about a bass drum. Edwin had been keen on drumming, so he said yes but then realized his teacher was talking about an upright string bass. Fortunately, he showed immediate acumen on the instrument, and pursued formal lessons.

At eleven or twelve years of age, he attended a music camp run by Frederick Zimmerman in upstate New York. He also studied with Richard Stephan of the Crane School of Music and Peter Mecurio in California, when he spent three summers at Santa Barbara’s Music Academy of the West. In the 1970s, he attended the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied under Henry Portnoi. He also participated in the Blossom Festival, where he took lessons from David Perlman.

All of this education prepared him for a brief stint with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and then his appointment as principal bass with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He served in the same capacity with Musicians of the World, at the behest of Georg Solti.

Other groups with whom he has worked include ALEA III, the Boston Classical Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Collage, the Hawthorne String Quartet, the Juilliard String Quartet, the Kalisto Chamber Orchestra, the Muir String Quartet, the New Philharmonia Orchestra, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and Triple Helix.

One of his early recordings was 1992’s Silenced Voices: Victims of the Holocaust, with the Hawthorne String Quartet.

On 28^th October 1998, he was a guest musician of the Muir String Quartet as they celebrated the 100^th birthday of Theodor Shedlovsky in Caspary Auditorium at Rockefeller University.

Theodore Antoniou wrote his Concertino for Contrabass and Chamber Orchestra for Edwin and the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and they gave the premiere of this work in 2000.

In the early 2000s, he appeared on a pair of recordings, Chamber Music of James Yannatos and Edwin Barker Plays Three Sonatas for Double Bass.

He was a featured soloist with the Kalistos Chamber Orchestra on 21^st May 2004, when he performed Ernst Bloch’s Prayer and Suite Hebraique.

On 19^th November 2004, he joined forces with violinist Brian Lindgren and Triple Helix for a wall-to-wall Schubert recital at Saranac Central School Auditorium.

In June 2005, he gave the world premiere of “Song”, which was written for him by Scott Fessler, in Boston, Massachusetts. Several composers have penned works for Edwin, including Samuel Headrick (Short Suite for Double Bass and Suite for Double Bass) and James Yannatos (Bass Concerto, Concerto for Contrabass and Variations for Solo Contrabass).

He appeared on the CD, Concerti for Double Bass, with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and Gunther Schuller, in 2005.

On 31^st July 2007, he and John Harbison teased the upcoming Festival for Contemporary Music and New Music for Double Bass at the Berkshire Museum. He played John’s Concerto for Bass Viol at the festival in August 2007.

In November 2007, he and the New Philharmonia Orchestra interpreted Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra by Eduard Tubin at Babson College and First Baptist Church in Newton Centre.

He reunited with the Muir String Quartet at Boston University on 1^st February 2008 for a program that included Double Bass Quintet by Antonin Dvorak and Quartet in A minor, Op. 13 by Felix Mendelssohn.

In November 2008, he participated in Double Bass Symposium XVII at the University of Georgia’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music.

He rejoined the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra for a recital at the Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, on 25^th January 2009.

On 16^th November 2009, he and flautist Doriot Anthony Dwyer, pianists John McDonald and Karen Sauer, and soprano Jodi Hitzhusen performed De Profundis, Lumiere Noir and Odessas 1-13 by Hayg Boyadjian at First Parish Chuch in Lexington Center.

He also appeared on the compact disc, Schulhoff/Schoenberg: Chamber Works, in 2009.

In August 2010, he reprised Theodore Antoniou’s Concertino for Contrabass and Orchestra at the Festival of Contemporary Music in Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall.

He returned to Ozawa Hall on 22^nd August 2011, when he paid homage to Serge Koussevitsky by performing a bass-and-piano arrangement of Max Bruch’s Kol nidrei. Likewise, he honoured the composer by christening the centennial season of the BSO with Serge’s Bass Concerto.

On 20^th November 2011, he and Keisuke Wakao and friends returned to Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill for another recital.

The BSO Chamber Players performed three serenades on 24^th January 2012: Serenade in C minor, K. 388 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Serenade in D for Flute, Violin and Viola, Op. 25 by Ludwig van Beethoven; and, Serenade No. 1 in D, Op. 11 by Johannes Brahms.

In the field of music education, Edwin has taught at Boston University, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Tanglewood Music Center.

Sources:

Barker, Edwin

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