Schmitt Music presents a special performance on Facebook Live
Please join us on Facebook for pianist & educator Dr. Paul Barnes LIVE from Schmitt Music Omaha on Thursday, February 18 at 7PM CST / 6PM MST – WATCH HERE!
“Barnes is an expressive pianist with a lovely tone and a flair for the dramatic.” – American Record Guide
Praised by the New York Times for his “Lisztian thunder and deft fluidity,” and the San Francisco Chronicle as “ferociously virtuosic,” pianist Paul Barnes has electrified audiences with his intensely expressive playing and cutting-edge programming. Dr. Barnes teaches at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Glenn Korff School of Music.
Please tune in to Schmitt Music Omaha’s Facebook page on Thursday evening.
Watch Mr. Barnes perform Philip Glass’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with the UNL Symphony Orchestra, April 2018:
Dr. Barnes will present his program A Bright Sadness at Schmitt Music Omaha. Performing as pianist and chanter, the program will include “piano works inspired by Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Native American chant” from Ron Warren, Victoria Bond, David von Kampen, and Philip Glass – click here to download the program.
Questions? Please call 402-391-5588 or email us at omkb@schmittmusic.com.
Praised by the New York Times for his “Lisztian thunder and deft fluidity,” pianist Paul Barnes has electrified audiences with his intensely expressive playing and cutting-edge programming. He has been featured seven times on APM’s Performance Today, on the cover of Clavier Magazine, and his recordings are streamed worldwide.
Celebrating his twenty-three-year collaboration with Philip Glass, Barnes commissioned and gave the world premiere of Glass’s Piano Quintet “Annunciation.” From the New York premiere at the Met Museum, New York Classical Review called the quintet a “a fascinating mosaic of Glass’s late style…with a warm inner expression that seemed to echo Brahms.” The world premiere performance was recently featured on Performance Today. Barnes recorded the quintet with Brooklyn Rider in January of 2019 on Glass’s label Orange Mountain Music and was released internationally in October of 2019 to critical acclaim. ResMusica in Paris wrote: “Paul Barnes, whose pianistic lines are always clear, is a marvel of dialogue with Brooklyn Rider.”
Barnes latest recital A Bright Sadness: Piano music inspired by Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Native American chant features a contemplative and cathartic program of piano works inspired by the mystical world of chant. Barnes, also a Greek Orthodox chanter, has collaborated most recently with Philip Glass and Victoria Bond to create piano works based on ancient byzantine and Jewish chant. Barnes has also been a passionate champion of the works of Liszt and performs Liszt’s late masterpiece, Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross exploring the painful but ultimately hopeful journey of Christ to the cross. The overall theme of “bright sadness” permeates the program as the tremendous depth and intensity of ancient chant is seen through the bright prism of hope and love. New chant-based works by Native flutist Ron Warren, David von Kampen, and Matthew Arndt are given their premiere performances.
Barnes is Marguerite Scribante Professor of Music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff School of Music. He teaches during the summer at the Vienna International Piano Academy, the Interharmony International Music Festival, and the Piano Plus Summer Piano Institute in Corfu, Greece. In great demand as a pedagogue and clinician, Barnes has served as convention artist at several state MTNA conventions, most recently in Virginia and was named ‘Teacher of the Year” by the Nebraska Music Teachers Association. Barnes’ recordings are available on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon.
Learn more on his website: paulbarnes.net.
