B.Mus (UBC), ACP (UofT)

Barnaby Kerekes is a graduate of the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto, having received his Bachelor of Music and an Advanced Certificate in Performance from each, respectively. Barnaby is a Bass Trombonist (a student of Douglas Sparkes of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Jeffrey Hall of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Richard Erb of the Louisiana Philharmonic) and has played with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Academy of Music Orchestra, the Vancouver Philharmonic, the West Coast Symphony, the Kamloops Symphony, the Burnaby Symphony, the Korean Canadian Symphony Orchestra, and the Brampton Symphony Orchestra. A four-time member of the prestigious National Youth Orchestra of Canada, he has worked under many notable conductors of the Canadian and international music scene such as Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Mario Bernardi, Sergiu Comissiona, Simon Streatfeild, Wallace Leung, Bruce Dunn, and Bramwell Tovey.  Well known beyond the Trombone community, Barnaby has also been heard coast to coast in live performances, and on CBC Radio 2.

Barnaby’s other teachers of note and influence are Gordon Cherry (Vancouver Symphony), and Edward Kleinhammer (formerly of the Chicago Symphony from 1940-1985). His studies have also led him to conducting, where he has been the assistant conductor of the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a strong advocate of Canadian music, Barnaby commissioned a new concerto for Bass Trombone by Elizabeth Raum (www.elizabethraum.com), premiered by him with visionary conductor Robert Raines and the Brampton Symphony in March, 2009.  He has recently recorded ‘Four Poems by Liza MacLellan and One Not’ by Ryan Purchase with the author narrating.  Barnaby has also commissioned and premiered works by Canadian composers Christopher Nickel, and Nicholas P. Francis.

Barnaby is the founder of ABC Academy of Music in Toronto, Canada, and since 2004 has taught students from Canada, South Africa, and Scotland.   Barnaby has given a masterclass at Queen’s Univeristy in Kingston, ON, and a clinic at Long & McQuade in Toronto, ON.

Past performances have taken Barnaby from one end of Canada to the other, and overseas to Hong Kong, Japan and Europe.