Pianist and composer Barney McAll was born and raised in a town about 37 kilometers east of Melbourne named Mooroolbark and his latest recording, released in 2015, is also called Mooroolbark and as Barney says he decided to call the album by that name because, “for many reasons Moroolbark is why I play music.”
Barney is a graduate of the Victorian College of Arts and released his first album ‘Exit’ in 1996, he left Australia a year later to join the band of USA saxophonist Gary Bartz. Barney has called New York home since that time until his return to Australia to take up the 2015 Peggy Glanville-Hicks composer residency in Sydney. In the interim Barney has formed numeruous ensembles, performed internationally with jazz legends and recorded prolifically. In 2007 he was nominated for a Grammy award and was also awarded a Fellowship from the Australia Council for the arts.
Following the composer residency Barney returned to Melbourne.
Barney McAll’s album Moroolbark is both a homecoming and the story of his journey from Moroolbark to New York and back again so I’ll be starting the program with Track One. The composition is called ‘Nectar Spur’ and Barney says it’s inspired by an auspicious encounter with Egeberto Gismonti and Nana Vasconcelos in 1984.