Livermore-Amador Symphony
Conductor & Music Director
Dr. Arthur Barnes
Art Barnes at an
after-concert reception
in March 2010
held to celebrate
his 80th birthday.
(photo: Walter Davies)
Art Barnes took over the podium of the Livermore-Amador Symphony in the fall of 1964. This affiliation is probably a record-setting tenure for a community orchestra conductor. During his first year as conductor in Livermore he completed his doctorate in orchestral conducting at Stanford University and was offered a full-time appointment in the university’s music department. During the next thirty-five years he served as director of bands; conductor of the chamber orchestra and of the wind ensemble; and professor of theory, orchestration, ear training, and score reading. He also holds a bachelor's degree in music education and a master's in theory and composition.
His early career included serving as supervisor of music in an Ohio public school district and on the music faculties of Southern Illinois University and Fresno State. He is an accomplished jazz and classical pianist and has worked professionally as a trombone player and bassoonist in the Wichita Symphony, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, and the Fresno Symphony. His primary conducting mentor was Richard Lert, with whom he worked for four summers as a conducting fellow under the auspices of the American Symphony Orchestra League (now the League of American Orchestras). He also spent a summer workshop studying with conductor Eric Leinsdorf. Composer Roy Harris was his primary composition teacher as well as a close personal friend.
As a guest at the University of York he worked extensively as a brass band conductor and composer. He has appeared as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator in Australia, Japan, England, the Philippines, and the U.S.
During the over four decades of his involvement with the Livermore-Amador Symphony his entire family has performed as members of the orchestra or as soloists. His wife and son on French horn, one daughter on violin, another on bassoon, and a granddaughter on cello.
His eclectic background and skills have strongly contributed to the success and longevity of the Symphony.
Symphony lore for years included a myth that Barnes's doctoral thesis was based on his work with LAS. The Symphony did have a role, of lesser import, in some of the classes he taught at Stanford, though: Recordings of LAS mistakes were occasionally used as examples for ear-training students to listen for "What was wrong with that?"!
True story: Art Barnes once left a Friday-night Pops concert in Livermore with his scores on the roof of his car! He conducted the Saturday Pops concert primarily from merged individual parts. The music was discovered on Sunday morning near Vineyard Avenue south of Livermore, as wet sheets scattered over the countryside.—Orchestra member Larry George, on a bicycle, had retraced Barnes's route home! He gathered up the music and brought it to the home of orchestra members Arnold and Marion Clark since Marion was the Symphony librarian. The three of them spread music throughout the house to dry; music everywhere. And their efforts paid off: the complete set of music was successfully recovered and usable. (Good thing, since some of it had been rented!)
© Livermore-Amador Symphony Association