Zodiac Trio and Ariel Barnes, West Vancouver United Church, Saturday, April 7 at 7:30 p.m. For details visit vancouverchambermusic.com.
A former North Vancouver resident is coming back to his hometown roots to perform in a West Vancouver concert.
Classical cellist Ariel Barnes is set to perform with the Zodiac Trio, a clarinet, violin and piano ensemble, at West Vancouver United Church tomorrow night. Barnes used to be the primary cellist at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra until he took on the role as solo cellist at the Nürnberger Symphoniker in Germany in the summer of 2017.
“It’s a huge sense of nostalgia,” says the Windsor Secondary alumnus. “It feels great to be, let’s say, home. In some ways, it feels like I haven’t left.”
Barnes and the Zodiac Trio’s chemistry started in the summer of 2013 while he was performing in his harp and cello duo, Couloir, with his musical partner Heidi Krutzen at the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. Couloir and the Zodiac Trio’s clarinetist, Kliment Krylovskiy, were put in a mixed chamber ensemble at the music festival and by the next day Krylovskiy invited Barnes to teach and play at their educational music festival in France. After Barnes agreed to play at the Zodiac Music Academy and Festival, an educational festival for advanced university students and young professionals on the cusp of their careers, he recorded some pieces for the trio’s album in 2015.
“We’re touring to continue the natural chemistry and musical relationship that we developed in the last several years and to support the recordings that we’ve made,” Barnes explains.
After four years at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra the former Lynnmour resident moved to Germany, with his wife and two daughters, to pursue his dream to broaden his understanding of the European culture and language.
Barnes says there’s a huge difference between Vancouver and Germany’s music scene. He says although Vancouver has a good music community, in Germany there’s a strong social infrastructure to support the arts.
“There’s a general understanding that people have (in Germany) that music truly enriches your quality of life, that it’s not necessarily an ancillary benefit to one’s daily activity,” he says. “There’s a true understanding that to be a musician is a real profession that requires an incredible amount of work and dedication in order for people to have sort of a soul enriching experience.”
Amongst the many accomplishments he’s experienced in his year in Germany so far, Barnes is most proud of taking first prize at the 2017 Johannes Brahms Competition in Poertschach, Austria.
Germany is an “open ended move” for the whole family. Germany was a top pick for the family because Barne’s wife is German, which made the language easy to learn for the whole family.
“It’s one of three languages that’s fluent in our household,” he says. “In the first year there, I’ve certainly learned fast, I have a long way to go but I do have sort of a basic functioning fluency with the language.”
Coming from a musical family, with a mother who was a violinist and a father who was a composer, Barnes recalls being surrounded with classical music at a young age.
“It was kind of my second language, when I talked about my daughters being bilingual, you know making music of this sort, this is my second language,” he says.
It was in the halls of Western Michigan University’s School of Music at the age of 20-years-old when he claimed his love for music. Barnes says it was really when he left home that he started to own up to his musical sensibilities and connections that he fell in love with music.
“I started to really understand this is incredibly special and I need to take ownership of this and I wanted to,” he says.
Barnes and the Zodiac Trio’s last show of their tour will be at the Maple Ridge Music Society on April 8.
