Posts Tagged ‘Mark Barnes’

Mark Barnes is a multiple award winning composer and producer with several exceptional album releases available, and another new project on the way entitled Alive which is nearing completion. After listening to his two most current CD releases, I can almost say with near certainty that the Alive CD will be comprised with more dramatic instrumental music with cutting edge electronics like I heard on his first two albums. I enjoyed meeting Mark so let me tell you more about him.

Mark Barnes has enjoyed the honor and distinction of producing award-winning music over the years, having won the Independent National Artist of the year award in 2008 from the Phoenix Music Awards.

He was the recipient of the Hollywood F.A.M.E. Award for Music & Cinema at the 18th Annual Los Angeles Music Awards, and a top 20 finalist in the instrumental category for the 11th annual edition of Unisong, an International Songwriting Contest.

In 2009 Mark Barnes won the Soloist of the Year Award at the 19th Annual Los Angeles Music Awards, and Composer of the Year award at the 20th Annual Los Angeles Music Awards in 2010. Another recent honor was the 2010 Genre Award in Music at the Pride in the Arts Music Awards, which was sponsored by Rainbow World Radio.

Mark’s most recent music award was for Best Original Song composition at the 2011 TCI Film Festival with co-writer and two-times Academy Award Nominee Carol Connors. Their win for best song was for a documentary-drama film score song titled A City Within A Dream.

The Awakening & Temporal Infinity is the two most current releases from Mark who is a U.S. resident from the state of Florida. He also happens to be a touring musician currently planning his 2012 concert tour that will present his live performance combined with digital animation and live action video. His objective is to display a stunning visual effect in correlation with each song so that concert attendees can visualize his music. To me, I can picture the effect similar to an audio visual concert designed for the hearing impaired.

The Awakening is the most current album featuring 14 songs that are an ethereal blend of New Age, Ambient and Electronic. Like most of the albums and individual downloads I sampled, The Awakening is an album that seems to highlight his skill as a pianist and composer who possess a full repertoire of engaging melodies. Likewise there is a magnificent counterpoise to his piano compositions by the synthesizer element which extends the range and depth and gives each piece a deep feeling of inner beauty.

The title song The Awakening & To The Edge Of The World are moderately time piano pieces that are good examples for his personal style of instrumental and synthesizer arrangements, some of which have strong percussion backing.

The Prayer was the best song I thought by portraying the deeply emotive melody on an epic scale that is comparable to the grand instrumentals in Back To Bali. The song Sunday Morning Dance is more of an exception to other songs since the primary focus here is a lively paced electronic techno rhythm with strong percussion to match.

Mark Barnes who is a voting member of The Recording Academy (Grammys) has another fine New Age, Ambient, and Electronic release titled Temporal Infinity. This earlier album is perpetually uplifting like The Awakening, but of a gentler variety on the 13 song composition. I thought both could be a best album or best song award winner.

The Awakening & Temporal Infinity each has their own melodic perspectives while giving a perfect illustration of this artist’s style and diversity. When listening to both albums the two interconnected aspects of his classic based melodies with expert synthesizer complements made me appreciate the fact I was listening to not only a multi-award winning composer and producer, but a seasoned music professional.

Visit markbarnsmusic.com to sample/purchase or visit his Amazon.com page. Photos are courtesy Mark Barnes Music. Visit carolconnors.com to read about the amazing career of Carol Connors, who herself will be the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in Composition this November at the Los Angeles Music Awards. Congradulations Carol Connors!