Orlando Concert Band Pays Tribute To Robert L. Barnes
It is our very great honor to add the Robert L. Barnes Music Library to the OCB repetoire. We dedicate this page to his love of music,
with the hope that we will honor his legacy through many performances of this music for years to come.
The Robert L. Barnes Music Library
Robert L. “Bob” Barnes (1925 - 1999) was born in Marceline, Missouri. His father, “Jock” Barnes, was a railroader by profession and an accomplished clarinet player. Bob’s early love of music was undoubtably inspired by his father. Bob excelled at playing the tuba early on and attended an excellent music school, Central Methodist College (now Central Methodist University), for a brief period of time. At the outbreak of WWII Bob enlisted in the Merchant Marines. During Merchant Marine training at Manhattan Beach, NY, Bob got the opportunity to play in various military bands with the finest professional musicians in New York City, which he regarded as a great experience. Later, Bob served on a seagoing tug in the North Atlantic, the English Channel, and along the west coast of Italy during the landing at Anzio and the Italian Campaign.
After the war, Bob continued to play tuba, eventually receiving a life membership in the American Federation of Musicians and an honorary membership in Phi Mu Alpha from the Beta Mu chapter at Central Methodist University.
Bob made a significant contribution to Mid-Missouri during our Nation’s Bicentennial by forming a professional concert band of about 35 musicians to play at various patriotic and community functions. This organization lasted well into the 1990s and performed the best concert band literature from the past 150 years. Much of this music is contained in the library.
As a result of this experience, and with the increasing popularity of “corps style” marching bands in our public school system, Bob realized that the classic and historic band literature from the “golden age” of bands had all but disappeared from the common band repertoire, along with true concert bands themselves (with a full complement of woodwinds but “no strings attached”). Bob took it upon himself to preserve as much of this literature as he could. He spent the rest of his life, and his own money, collecting the 904 sets of concert band music that make up the library today.
Those of us, both friends and fellow musicians, that knew Bob well will always remember him as an unforgettable and larger-than-life character. Bob was a man of tremendous personal warmth and charm, of great good humor, and with a “bon vivant” spirit who lived life fully and well. He was the finest friend a person could have. We miss him greatly.
It is both ironic and very appropriate that Bob’s library has found a home in Orlando and can make a significant contribution to the Orlando community, much the same as another man born in Marceline, Missouri : Walt Disney.
We are so grateful that his library has finally found a permanent home. Bob wanted nothing more than that his collection be played and appreciated by as many people as possible and that this fine music be introduced to generations who have not yet heard it.
Joe Derque
7/15/09