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. He has been featured seven times on APM’s Performance Today and on the cover of Clavier Magazine with his recordings streamed worldwide.  

Celebrating his twenty-five-year collaboration with Philip Glass, Barnes commissioned and gave the world premiere of Glass’s Piano Quintet “Annunciation.”  The work is Glass’s first piano quintet and first work based on Greek Orthodox chant.  Barnes’ recording of the quintet with string quartet superstars Brooklyn Rider was released 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’ twelfth CD New Generations: The New Etudes of Philip Glass and Music of the Next Generation has also received rave reviews.  Gramophone Magazine wrote, “Pianists of Barnes’s great technique and musicality are a boon to new music.”  And American Record Guide commented, “This disc provides further proof of Barnes’s ability to communicate new music with flair and passion.”   Produced by Orange Mountain Music, the recording features the world-premiere recording of Dreaming Awake, a selection of Glass’s etudes and works by N. Lincoln Hanks, Lucas Floyd, Jason Bahr, Zack Stanton, Ivan Moody, and Jonah Gallagher.  

Barnes is Marguerite Scribante Professor of Music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Glenn Korff School of Music. He was recently appointed Artistic Director of the Lied Center Piano Academy which welcomes several high-school pianists to Lincoln each summer for an intensive week of piano, composition, improvisation and collaboration.  He will also be teaching this summer in Greece at the Piano Plus Summer Institute.  In great demand as a pedagogue and clinician, Barnes has served as convention artist at several state MTNA conventions, most recently at Virginia and was named ‘Teacher of the Year” by the Nebraska Music Teachers Association.

Barnes latest recital Illumination 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.  New chant-based works by Native American flutist Ron Warren and David von Kampen are also given their premiere performances.  Barnes gave the world premiere of Victoria Bond’s Illuminations on Byzantine Chant at New York’s Symphony Space in April of 2021.   Barnes released his fourteenth recording this fall on Albany Records entitled Illumination: The Piano Works of Victoria Bond including the world-premiere recording of Illuminations on Byzantine Chant.  American Record Guide wrote “he sings with haunting musicality…and plays with fervid virtuosity…the music is calm and meditative, perfect for these troubled times.”  

Barnes recently gave the world premiere performance of “The Way of Mountains and Desert” by Native composer Ron Warren.  The work explores Native themes of creation and beauty.  Barnes is currently collaborating with Hollywood film composer JAC Redford on a new work inspired by the incarnational writing of Plato to be premiered at the St. Constantine School in Houston in July of 2023.  Barnes’ recordings are available on Spotify, Pandora, ITunes, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon.

Crucifer (cross bearer) is nine men dedicated to sharing their faith through singing together. Founded in 2009 for the centennial of the parish of Ss. Constantine & Elena in Indianapolis, this ensemble, rooted in the time honored Orthodox Christian tradition of a cappella singing, weaves together ancient and modern music to bring the richness of the Church's hymnody to life. Specializing in new settings of sacred texts sung in English, the men of Crucifer delight in performing pieces from a variety of Christian traditions.

Dreaming, Op.15 No.2 (1892) by Amy Beach

I have been in love with this gem of a piano piece ever since I heard it a few years ago.  The similarity of its beautiful opening with the opening of Philip Glass’s “The Land” from the Piano Concerto No.2 compelled me to finally program both back-to-back.  The Beach has that perfect balance between contrapuntal insight and a rich, colorful harmonic palate.  I dedicate this performance to my beloved teacher Menahem Pressler who passed away this year at the age of 99.  I owe my understanding of rich melodic tone to my years with him.

The Land, from Piano Concerto No.2 (After Lewis and Clark) by Philip Glass

On the fateful morning of September 11, 2001 I met with an administrator from the University of Nebraska about the possibility of raising money to commission Philip Glass to write a piano concerto commemorating the Lewis and Clark expedition. When I initially approached Glass about basing the new work on Lewis and Clark, he was particularly interested in the challenging task of presenting both the white and the Native American perspective.   The commissioning of the new concerto was funded by the Nebraska Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission, the Lied Center for Performing Arts, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts.   Without the vision and financial support of this consortium, the work would not have been possible.

The third and final movement entitled "The Land" is a gloriously expansive theme and variations reflecting the great vastness of the land explored by Lewis and Clark.  And this expansiveness refers not only to the vast area involved, but the expanse of time over which the land has evolved.  As Glass commented in our final working session on the concerto in July of 2004, "I wanted this final movement to reflect also the expanse of time - what the land was before the expedition and what it became after."  The movement begins with an extended introduction followed by the initial statement of the theme.  This stately theme derived both from the closing measures of the first movement and the opening theme of the Sacagawea movement is characterized by large, opulent chords animated by unusual inner lines creating a Bach-like relationship between the vertical chord structures and the inner voices.  My solo transcription includes settings of Variations I, IV, and VI with my cadenza preceding the sixth variation.

The world premiere performance of Glass’s Piano Concerto No.2 (After Lewis and Clark) took place in Lincoln, Nebraska on September 18th 2004 with the Omaha Symphony at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.   The world premier recording with the Northwest Chamber Orchestra was released by Orange Mountain Music in October of 2006 and Barnes’ solo transcription was released in February of 2008.  Both are available on ITunes.

My dear friend Ron Hull who served as chairman of the Nebraska Bicentennial Lewis and Clark Commission passed away this year.  Ron specifically requested that I play this movement at his funeral which I did last April.  Without Ron’s commitment and immense fund-raising talent, this piece would not exist. This performance is dedicated to his memory.

Kontakion of the Nativity of Our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ

Today the Virgin gives birth to the transcendent One.

And the earth presents a cave to the unapproachable One.

Angels, with shepherds give Him glory;

Wise men follow a star as they journey to Him

Who is God from all ages,

Yet for our sake was born as a little child.

            St. Romanos the Melodist, 6^th century

Variations on the Incarnation (2023) by J.A.C. Redford

I first met composer and orchestrator J.A.C. Redford fifteen years ago when I performed in Oxford UK at the 2008 Oxbridge conference hosted by the CS Lewis Foundation.  I am thrilled to be collaborating with him on a commission by the faculty of the St. Constantine School and College in Houston to be premiered in Houston at the 2023 Vision Conference on July 27^th.   The work is in honor of Dr. John Mark Reynold’s philosophy teacher Al Geier.   The work is based on the venerable Greek Orthodox hymn on the nativity of Christ composed by St. Romanos the Melodist in the 6^th century.   I’ve been singing this hymn for over thirty years now as the head chanter of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, and each year the liturgical experience of the incarnation reveals new layers of meaning.   The work begins with my favorite Greek word – simeron – today.  Emphasizing the platonic ideal of actual participation in the creative cause, the opening phrase “Today the virgin gives birth, to the transcendent One” invites the listener to participate in the eternal present that marks liturgical reality in the Orthodox church.   We are not just remembering a past event but entering the reality made possible by that divine event!   As the nativity of God made possible our complete union with God who is now fully human, our human nature is mystically joined to Christ through sacramental participation in the love events of the church.

Like most Orthodox hymns, the text of the nativity kontakion explores the deep paradox of the incarnation as the creator of the universe us born as a little child; and the One who cannot be contained is contained in the womb of the virgin, the most holy Theotokos.

JAC’s beautiful work is a theme and variations and begins with an important three-part introduction reflecting the triune reality of the existence of God.   After this introduction which returns at key structural moments throughout the work, the hymn is presented in its entirety with minimal harmonization.

Variation one features an introspective and warm harmonization while variations two and three feature traditional rhythmic diminution, a feature of many variations sets from the depth of the piano literature.   Variation four is a gentle pastorale in A-flat major (a key briefly referenced in the preceding variations) leading to a wildly contrasting and violent variation five.   As this variation dissipates, a ppp hint of the theme returns before the majestic and triumphal variation six.   As this variation concludes, the introduction returns with a quiet and peaceful ending on this musical meditation on the incarnation of Christ.

The composer describes his vision as inspired by the text of the hymn:

"The text prompted references to ancient Christian spirituality within the music itself. The introduction, interlude and conclusion are made up of three essential phrases, echoing Trinitarian thought. The first descends in resonance with the condescension of God becoming man in the Incarnation, the second ascends in harmony with the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and the third descends again, as does the New Jerusalem at the ultimate restoration of all things. The first three variations unfold as does the life and ministry of Jesus with increasing complexity. The fourth may be heard as accompaniment to the first Holy Thursday, which Christ spent with his disciples in the upper room on the eve of his crucifixion. and during which he washed their feet, taught them about the depths of love, and introduced the Eucharist. The furioso reflects the violence of Good Friday, the stillness of its refrain the numbness of Holy Saturday, and the triumphal sixth variation the glory of Easter."

Illuminations on Byzantine Chant (2021)

This work represents over twenty years of creative collaboration with my dear friend Victoria Bond.  Chanting in Orthodox churches for the last quarter of a century, I wanted to select byzantine hymns that reflected the wide emotional range and spiritual message of Orthodox Christianity.   

Potirion Sotiriu (1999)

The idea for the Potirion Sotiriu began as a fragile melody I sung for Victoria, on a foggy hillside in the Czech city of Zlin.  I was recording Victoria’s first piano concerto Black Light and we were on our way to a recording session where I related my ecstatic experiences chanting in the Greek Orthodox Church.  She asked me to sing one of my favorite melodies and I sang the communion hymn Potirion Sotiriu, “The Cup of Salvation,” which is sung on the feasts of the Theotokos.  Victoria was moved by the hymn and thus began her exploration into the mystical world of Byzantine chant.

The work begins with a beautifully voiced statement of the original melody in its entirety and then goes through a fascinating journey and discovery of the various components of the chant.  In a loosely constructed set of variations, the work concludes with an exciting coda revealing the innate power of the chant itself.  Potirion was eventually transformed by Victoria into the piano concerto “Ancient Keys” which I recorded on my second volume of American Piano Concertos released on the Albany label in 2006.

Simeron Kremate (2019)

Simeron Kremate was written in the fall of 2018/spring of 2019 and is based on the Greek Orthodox crucifixion chant from the Holy Thursday service chanted during Orthodox Holy Week.  Its opening five-note melody in the plagal of the second mode features the augmented seconds that are characteristic of this musically compelling mode.  The text “Simeron kremate” opens the hymn emphasizing the liturgical truth that “today” (simeron), we mystically participate in this great act of love from the past thereby making the past eternally present.   Victoria also decided to incorporate a Jewish Passover chant “Tal” (dew) whose opening melody bears an uncanny similarity to the opening of the Greek chant.   This Jewish prayer for the blessing of dew is sung on the first day of Passover, the date of which the Greek Orthodox always consider for the timing of their own celebration of Pascha, the Greek word for “Passover.”  Just as the Jewish community liturgically asks God for the gift of dew, so the Greek Orthodox community contemplates the gift of God in Christ, who today is suspended on a cross.  The work opens with the traditional apichima of the plagal of the second mode which aurally establishes the musical atmosphere of the mode.   Victoria follows this with a Jewish style cantillation (based on the cantillation of the great cantor Yosele Rosenblatt) which leads to the first statement of the “Simeron” chant.   These opening notes are then developed in multiple ways before the intimate entry of the “Tal” melody.  The work concludes with a ‘tranquillo’ passage of rare beauty ingeniously combining both themes.   The work ends tentatively and unresolved as the opening notes of the chant dissipate into eternity.  The work was jointly commissioned by the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Nebraska and the Soli Deo Gloria Music Foundation in Chicago.

Σήμερον Κρεμάται (Today is Suspended)

From the Matins Service of Holy Friday (celebrated on Thursday evening)

Today, He who suspended the earth on the waters is suspended on a cross. 3x

The King of the Angels wears a crown of thorns.

He who wraps the sky in clouds is wrapped in a fake purple robe.

He who freed Adam in the Jordan accepts to be slapped.

The Bridegroom of the Church is fixed with nails to the cross.

The Son of the virgin is pierced with a spear.

We worship Your Passion, O Christ. 3x

Show us also Your glorious Resurrection.

Enite ton Kyrion (2021)

Enite ton Kyrion was written in 2021 as the final movement of Victoria’s byzantine trilogy Three Illuminations on Byzantine Chant.  When I commissioned the work which was funded by the Hixson Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I wanted this final movement to be a musical expression of divine love.  I selected the Sunday communion hymn Enite ton Kyrion, “Praise the Lord” from Psalm 148.

Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the highest.

Sung in the plagal of the fourth mode, the melody is a simple diatonic expression of love sung in the Divine Liturgy just before the faithful come forward to receive holy communion, the mystical joining of humanity with God, the ultimate expression of divine love.   I told Victoria early in the process that I envisioned this final movement to be similar to the final movement of Schumann’s glorious Fantasie which after the emotional intensity of the first and second movements begins slowly as various keys are beautifully and meditatively explored.   Victoria’s work did not disappoint!   Enite begins actually as the resolution of the previous work Simeron Kremate which left the final e-flat of the Simeron chant unresolved until the first note of Enite!   Fragments of the melody emerge as she explores several different keys and colors before a complete statement in C major is presented in canon.   In a beautiful expression of musical cyclicism, both Potirion and Simeron return effectively preparing the final statement of the Enite theme.  Preceded by a most exciting dominant prologation, the Enite theme returns with an exultant and ecstatic tintinnabulation with giant bells booming in the bass.  The entire melody is presented in canon and then slowly dissipates into an ineffable expression of love.

My world premiere recording of Illuminations on Byzantine Chant was released on Albany Records in October of 2021.  American Record Guide wrote of Illuminations that "he sings with haunting musicality...and plays with fervid virtuosity...the music is calm and meditative, perfect for these troubled times.”

Philip Glass
Through his operas, his symphonies, his compositions for his own ensemble, and his wide-ranging collaborations with artists ranging from Twyla Tharp to Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen to David Bowie, Philip Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times. The operas – “Einstein on the Beach,” “Satyagraha,” “Akhnaten,” and “The Voyage,” among many others – play throughout the world’s leading houses, and rarely to an empty seat. Glass has written music for experimental theater and for Academy Award-winning motion pictures such as “The Hours” and Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun,” while “Koyaanisqatsi,” his initial filmic landscape with Godfrey Reggio and the Philip Glass Ensemble, may be the most radical and influential mating of sound and vision since “Fantasia.” His associations, personal and professional, with leading rock, pop and world music artists date back to the 1960s, including the beginning of his collaborative relationship with artist Robert Wilson. Indeed, Glass is the first composer to win a wide, multi-generational audience in the opera house, the concert hall, the dance world, in film and in popular music – simultaneously.

 He was born in 1937 and grew up in Baltimore. He studied at the University of Chicago, the Juilliard School and in Aspen with Darius Milhaud. Finding himself dissatisfied with much of what then passed for modern music, he moved to Europe, where he studied with the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (who also taught Aaron Copland , Virgil Thomson and Quincy Jones) and worked closely with the sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar. He returned to New York in 1967 and formed the Philip Glass Ensemble – seven musicians playing keyboards and a variety of woodwinds, amplified and fed through a mixer. The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed “minimalism.” Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to speak of himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures.” Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry. Or, to put it another way, it immersed a listener in a sort of sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops.There has been nothing “minimalist” about his output. In the past 25 years, Glass has composed more than twenty five operas, large and small; twelve symphonies; three piano concertos and concertos for violin, piano, timpani, and saxophone quartet and orchestra; soundtracks to films ranging from new scores for the stylized classics of Jean Cocteau to Errol Morris’s documentary about former defense secretary Robert McNamara; string quartets; a growing body of work for solo piano and organ. He has collaborated with Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Yo-Yo Ma, and Doris Lessing, among many others. He presents lectures, workshops, and solo keyboard performances around the world, and continues to appear regularly with the Philip Glass Ensemble.

J.A.C. Redford
J.A.C. Redford is a composer, arranger, orchestrator and conductor of concert, chamber and choral music, film, television and theater scores, and music for recordings. 

Artists and ensembles that have performed his work include: Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Joshua Bell, Liona Boyd, Cantus, Chicago Symphony, De Angelis Vocal Ensemble, Debussy Trio, Israel Philharmonic, Kansas City Chorale, Los Angeles Chamber Singers, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Anne Akiko Meyers, Millennium Consort Singers, New York Philharmonic, Phoenix Chorale, Staatskapelle Dresden, St. Martin’s Chamber Choir, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Utah Chamber Artists and Utah Symphony.

His music has been featured on programs at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Lincoln Center in New York, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and London’s Royal Albert Hall. He composed the Raymond W. Brock Memorial Commission for the American Choral Directors Association 2017 National Conference in Minneapolis, MN.

Redford has written the scores for more than three dozen feature films, TV movies or miniseries, including The Trip to Bountiful, One Night with the King, What the Deaf Man Heard, Mama Flora’s Family and Disney’s Oliver & Company, Newsies and The Mighty Ducks II and III. He has composed the music for nearly 500 episodes of series television, including multiple seasons of Coach and St. Elsewhere (for which he received two Emmy® nominations).

His incidental music has been heard in theatrical productions at the Matrix Theater in Los Angeles and South Coast Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa, California, as well as in the American Playhouse series on PBS. Two of his musical comedies are published by Dramatic Publishing and performed frequently across North America.

Collaborating with other artists, Redford has orchestrated, arranged or conducted for Academy Award®-winning composers, James Horner, Alan Menken, Randy Newman, Rachel Portman and John Williams, as well as for Terence Blanchard, Danny Elfman, Simon Franglen, Mark Isham, Thomas Newman, Marc Shaiman, and Cirque du Soleil’s Benoit Jutras, on projects including The Little Mermaid, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Perfect Storm, WALL-E, Avatar, Skyfall, Bridge of Spies, 1917 and most recently Avatar: The Way of Water, A Man Called Otto and Elemental. He orchestrated and conducted Adele’s Oscar-winning title song for Skyfall, wrote arrangements for Joshua Bell’s Voice of the Violin, At Home with Friends, Musical Gifts and The Classical Collection recordings as well as Anne Akiko Meyers’ Serenade: The Love Album, and has written for and recorded with other Grammy Award®-winning artists Steven Curtis Chapman, Bonnie Raitt and Sting.

He has produced, arranged, and conducted music for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and served as a consultant for the Sundance Film Institute, a teacher in the Artists-in-Schools program for the National Endowment for the Arts, a guest lecturer at USC and UCLA, and on the Music Branch Executive Committees for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

Redford’s music is published by Hal Leonard, G. Schirmer, Roger Dean, Mark Foster, Fred Bock, Fatrock Ink and Plough Down Sillion Music. He is the author of Welcome All Wonders: A Composer’s Journey, published by Baker Books. His many recordings include eight collections of his concert, chamber and choral music, The Alphabet of Revelation, Confessiones, Eternity Shut in a Span, Evening Wind, The Growing Season, Inside Passage, Let Beauty Be Our Memorial and Waltzing with Shadows.

Victoria Bond leads a multifaceted career as composer, conductor, lecturer, and artistic director of Cutting Edge Concerts. Bond’s opera, Clara, premiered at the Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival in Germany in 2019. Recent commissions include: The Adventures of Gulliver (American Opera Project through a commissioning grant from Opera America); Blue and Green Music (Chamber Music America commission for the Cassatt String Quartet); The Miracle of Light (The Young Peoples Chorus of NYC, commission, premiered by Chamber Opera Chicago). Recent recordings include Instruments of Revelation (Naxos American Classics), Soul of a Nation: Portraits of Presidential Character (Albany Records), The Voices of Air (Albany). Recent performances include: scenes from Mrs. President (Dell’Arte Opera Ensemble), scenes from Clara (The German Forum), Mrs. President (Rochester Lyric Opera).Ms. Bond has composed eight operas, six ballets, two piano concertos and orchestral, chamber, choral and keyboard compositions. She has been commissioned by ensembles including the Houston and Shanghai Symphony Orchestras, Cleveland and Indianapolis Chamber Orchestras, Michigan Philharmonic, Cassatt String Quartet, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Soli Deo Gloria Music Foundation, American Opera Project, Young Peoples’ Chorus of NYC, Manhattan Choral Ensemble, Choral Society of the Hamptons, American Ballet Theater, Pennsylvania Ballet, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Her compositions have been performed by the Dallas Symphony, New York City Opera, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Anchorage Opera, Irish National Orchestra (RTE), Shanghai Symphony and members of the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony, among others. Victoria Bond is principal guest conductor of Chamber Opera, Chicago, a position she has held since 2008. Ms. Bond is the recipient of the Victor Herbert Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Walter Hinrichsen Award, the Perry F. Kendig Award and the Miriam Gideon Prize. She is a graduate of Juilliard with a DMA in conducting.