Bio
David Barela
His Beat is a Steady 4/4
The Hispanic surname, Barela, comes originally from Spain; its musical character suits David Barela’s passionate temperament. David was born in Silver City, New Mexico, a town of 10,000 people only fifty miles from the Mexican border. His parents, George and Anne Barela, divorced when he was three; although he is an only child, he had a number of close friends who became to him like siblings. David was still young when his paternal grandmother, Esther Barela, recognized his alreadyevident musical talent and encouraged him to begin the study of piano, which he did, at age four.
The Barela’s being Catholic, it was a given that David attend Catholic schools. His teen years at Silver High School were not especially noteworthy. He was overweight and suffered from low self‑esteem, he retreated socially and watched too much television. He recalls being a mediocre student, struggling as he did with a disability with which he still contends: Attention Deficit Disorder, which makes it difficult to focus on the task at hand. (ADD did not yet “have a name” in the way that it does now.) He played piano constantly, studying it and accompanying a myriad school functions. In the summer before his senior year David went on a crash diet, shed sixty pounds and became someone else ‑ a more social person. A vocal teacher gave him a recording of opera music, to which he spent many happy hours listening. He had long since decided to become an opera singer.
David enrolled at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, studying voice. At the University of Arizona, in Tucson ‑ where David is remembered as one of the school’s best music students ‑ he studied under Igor Gorin, a retired concert artist and consummate showman with a glorious voice who represented, for David, all the glamour and glory of the old‑school singer. (At both universities at which David studied, academic scholarships for meritorious musical achievement covered all costs.) David took voice lessons from Gorin and was employed as his studio accompanist for five years, from 1973 to 1978, when he moved to York City. He auditioned for a well‑known voice coach who delivered what David experienced as a knife in the stomach. “You do not have a big enough voice for a professional career,” he said. “Why not focus on piano?” Although it was hard news to receive, David came to see the wisdom of that verdict; he knew that he had a good voice, but not a superb one. He returned to the U. of New Mexico (his mother lived in Albuquerque) and began studying towards a Masters degree in Piano. Concurrent with that endeavor, he began a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the U. of Arizona (the two universities are ten hours apart by car, a distance David traversed more frequently than he cares to remember). At the U. of Arizona he studied under Professor Ozan Marsh, a superb teacher who divided the learning process into manageable increments, from first encounter with a piece of music to performance‑ level virtuosity.
Doing a Master’s and a doctoral degree in tandem was no easy accomplishment for someone with ADD as well as an excruciating performance anxiety. Curiously, says David, ADD has furnished him with the greatest gift an artist could wish for ‑ a vivid imagination. He can be working on scales and technique, and his mind can be somewhere else in the hemisphere.
David’s relocation to Seattle was the outcome of what he identifies as a midlife crisis. He had been Music Director and organist at a large Presbyterian church in Green Valley, a retirement community in Arizona, he felt miserable and unfulfilled. One weekend he headed to a musical gig in Santa Fe, New Mexico ‑ and never returned to Green Valley. (He admits that he never even told his mother that he was leaving for good.) He arrived in Seattle in mid‑September, 1994. “I had nothing lined up,” he says, “but I knew it was the right choice.”
David got a job moving furniture but soon landed something more promising: he telephoned the one contact he had in Seattle, the Music Director at University Presbyterian Church, and learned that the assistant organist had quit that very day. David had a job. His early months in Seattle, although exhilarating, were not easy. He endured a season of feeling turned off music and burned out professionally; it was during this low period that he came to Gethsemane, in autumn of 1995. The Gethsemane community has changed him, he says; he has never before felt a personal connection with others in his workplace setting. Gethsemane people have been good to him, and he, in turn, has good feelings about this church community. A compact disc project helped pull him get out of his slump; he dubs it a learning project, a crazy experiment that grew. It was a psychiatrist friend in Seattle who diagnosed David’s Attention Deficit and recommended medication, which he now takes, to help him remain on task. (Reading a book about ADD was like a light bulb going on in his head, he says.) For the first time in his life he is able to play more securely than ever, without the terror of performance.
David’s mother moved from Arizona to Seattle (his father died in 1985), and he is delighted to have her closer at hand. His goals have shifted from what he might have wanted ten years ago. He desires to use his talent for others. The future? “I see myself performing, recording, and teaching. This is a good time in my life,” says David. “I want to play more and more, and see where it takes me.”
