Barry Wayne Geates

1956 –

Barry Geates, a tuba and string bass player, is a physician who was active in school music groups while a student and then continued participating in orchestras and choirs whenever possible after becoming a doctor.

Barry was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised on a farm until his teenage years, the older of two sons of Robert and Mildred Whipps Geates. Music was an important activity in the home, with both sons taking piano lessons beginning at an early age and progressing through several levels.

When he was fourteen, his mother, who was a skilled secretary, became Director of Admissions and Records at Canadian Union College, now Canadian University College, and Barry began study in brass instruments, excelling in tuba. He also later took string lessons at CUC under the guidance of Curtis Wolfe, an inspiring teacher, and became a string bass player.

He was a member of music ensembles all through his high school and college years, playing under Lloyd Fisher in the band and brass ensembles and Wolfe in string groups at CUC. He later played in the brass choir under H. Lloyd Leno at Walla Walla College, now University, and particularly enjoyed touring in Poland with that group in December 1979. He completed a degree in biomedical electronics at WWC in 1981.

He also played string bass in the Walla Walla Symphony Orchestra while at WWC and later, while attending the School of Medicine at the University of Alberta, occasionally participated in string ensembles at CUC. He married Sandra Faye Coles, a native of Prince Edward Island, in 1985.

Following graduation from medical school in 1986, they moved to Lacombe, where he established a practice as a General Practitioner and Hospitalist and played in the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra as principal string bass. Faye teaches social studies and English as a second language at Parkview Adventist Academy. They have a son, Alexander Barry, who is a student at CUC.

ds/2012

Source: Information provided by Barry Geates, June and September, 2012.