Aaron Barnell Musician Bio

Aaron Barnell began playing drums professionally at age 16 as the pit drummer for Ruby's Cabaret in Minneapolis. That same year in 10th grade, Aaron met the great music educator and musician Donald Washington, who engaged his students in the daily practice of  "Art of the Moment" improvisation where the only rules are "don't talk, just play", and intense focus on fundamentals and jazz repertoire. This would compel the young student to be inspired by a  wide range of early musical influences: the piano playing of Thelonius Monk and McCoy Tyner, the drumming of Elvin Jones and Stewart Copeland, rock bands The Clash and The Sex Pistols,  legendary Malian guitarist/songwriter Ali Farka Toure, songwriters Joan Armatrading and Suzanne Vega, and sonic studio  genius guitarist/composer Steve Tibbetts.  
In college Aaron would expand drum study into orchestra percussion and hand drumming from Ghana, Haiti and Brazil; and begin incorporation of electronics into live performance, and began composing. He become an early pioneer of creating live loop based compositions  with ground breaking performances in New York, San Fransisco and Minneapolis with live recording of percussion, samples, synthesizers and live sampling from vinyl and CD- impressing the likes of Prince with his solo performances.

As a music creator Aaron has collaborated with MacArthur Genius recipient choreographer Bill T. Jones, Olivier Award winning theater company Improbable (Animo),  found footage documentary film maker Craig Baldwin (DeFact(o) Films), composed the soundtrack for the feature film Strange As Angels by Steven Foly, created original music for new theater works The House That Crack Built and Mighty Real: A Tribute to Sylvester by Djola Branner, and Queen Nanny by the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask theater.  As a drummer Aaron has worked with Grammy award winning songwriter Dan Wilson, backed up Broadway legend Tommy Tune and Grammy winning singer Jamecia Bennet, worked as pit drummer for the Guthrie and Children’s theater’s,  and with acclaimed singer/songwriters Thea Ennen and Barbara Cohen.  Aaron is currently in development of his first full length musical theater work: CLEAN, and is the pit drummer and a teaching artist for Lundstrum Performing Arts in Minneapolis. Aaron has been a recipient of the Jerome Travel/Study grant, and  the Intermedia Arts Diverse Visions grant.

Aaron spent many of those years equally steeped in work as a teaching artist, focusing on work in under-served communities in Minneapolis / St Paul with the creation of kids drum groups with mentor Marc Anderson at the Mounds Park All Nations Magnet School, offering free drumming classes at community centers, teaching at MacNally Smith College of Music,  participating in high school artist in residence programs with Twin Cities artists including dancer Leah Nelson, song writing singer/spoken word artist Dessa, doing extensive volunteer drumming for local break dance ciphers.

At age 35, Aaron took a 10 year hiatus from much of his  art making and teaching activities but kept active by anchoring the pit band as drummer and teaching artist for Lundstrum Performing Arts in Minneapolis and being a part of an artistic team that serves students of all ages, demographics, identities, abilities and interests helping keep the dream alive that magic really does happen on the theater stage, and that music and theater has the power to transform lives in the most positive ways.
In 2021 Aaron began work on his first full length musical theater work CLEAN, and continues on that journey determined to see the work to the stage someday.