They go together like music and lyrics: Meet Newcastle's newest OAMs

Creative lives are lived in trenches of endless work, doubt and frustration, lit by intermittent flashes of satisfaction and inspiration. It would be madness to say the artist lives like that merely because they want to; they're compelled to it. It's as vital to them as breathing.

Rodney Barnes readily admits that he was a lousy student of music. His grandmother was said to be a magnificent and accomplished church organist, but he never heard her play. His parents were musically inclined as well, and the four children, of whom Mr Barnes was the third, were all expected to be instructed in classical piano.

"My brother went through all that, and my sister went through it, and when it got to me to have a go, I lasted about 18 months," he said, "I couldn't stand it. But as you go through life, you get chances at things."

In high school, he was encouraged to choose between classes in the choir or taking lessons on the recorder.

"There was no way I was joining the choir," he said and chose the recorder. "I had a ball! I loved it.

"It was a technical high school, so music wasn't that thought-of; you only did it in the first year, but (my teacher) must have noticed something and invited me to join with a young piano student from another school and go out and perform. I went to City Hall - just the recorder and the piano - and in the meantime, I heard people like Benny Goodman and fell in love with the clarinet."

Music would never come as easily to Mr Barnes as it seemed to come to others. He had to work at it and practice for hours longer than he thought he should need to. He studied architecture at university and, as a graduate with a talent for technical drawing, he took work with one of the leading firms in the Hunter. By the late 1970s, he was promoted and became one of the leading voices at the firm; music, at that time, might not have been something he thought he wanted, but such things are never measured in those terms. He needed it.

"I was a director for five years," he said, "And I realised I hated it. To the disgust of my boss, I threw it all in and went to sell pianos and organs in Newcastle.

"I was a terrible salesman - hopeless - but when I finally sold one, we gave away six free lessons with it, and that is what really got me going. I really love teaching people about music and getting them on the road."

In the early 1970s, Mr Barnes, a naturally introverted and softly-spoken man, was leading his local church band when he met his future wife and lifelong musical partner - Jenny. They married in 1974.

If Mr Barnes was the music, Mrs Barnes was the lyrics. Even as a child, she was naturally drawn to the spotlight. She found comfort in performance and entertainment and grew up singing around her mother's piano. At 10, she was cast on a Channel 3 offshoot of the Melbourne-based youth arts show Swallow's Juniors - a forerunner of youth variety television programs like Young Talent Time.

It was in high school that Mrs Barnes remembers being first drawn to the opera, the style which she says "suited her dramatic personality".

"I'd be in music classes and listening to voices singing in ways that I was thrilled by," she said, "I wanted to know how the heck you could make those sounds."

At the opera, she said, there were no subtle emotions. The stories swing from the greatest highs to the lowest lows, from joy to sorrow, and always singing to the very back of the room. The hook was set.

"I think a lot of creative people will tell you that there's this inner itch that never goes away until you scratch it," she said.

In the trenches, she found setbacks and obstacles at almost every turn. Steady employment prospects were hard to come by in the classical arts, and Mrs Barnes didn't start truly pursuing opera until she was in her 30s.

In 1988, at the age of 34 and just as her career seemed to be taking up momentum, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Surgery and chemotherapy followed. Mr Barnes put his own musical pursuits on hold as the couple and their young family tried to recoup the fragments.

This week, the lifelong singer looked back on her career spanning local and regional performances, an extended time performing with Opera Australia - one of the world's most celebrated companies - and a working life dedicated to teaching others, and thought the adversity ultimately helped propel her along her way.

"I took it that, without the cancer, I probably wouldn't have had the chutzpah to think, you really only have one life, and if you want to do this, you better do it well," Mrs Barnes said.

At one point, she remembers standing in the wings of an Opera Australia production of Madame Butterfly, having understudied the lead, never expecting that she would be called up to sing when season's diva was suddenly unavailable.

"The Whitlams were there," she said, "The Japanese Ambassador was there. And one of the techs backstage said, 'I have never met you'. I said they hadn't, and he said, 'So you haven't been in the chorus or had any minor roles?'. I said no. And he said, 'Gee whizz, man, you know how to jump in the deep end'.

"When you're auditioning for the company, you hope (for something like that), but it's never guaranteed.

"Rod was really incredibly supportive and put a lot of his work on hold so that I could do these things over the years. And really, since I have stopped running around the countryside doing opera, it has been my joy to see him leading the band and doing arrangements and the creative things that really fulfil him."

On January 26, the Adamstown couple will be inducted into the Order of Australia and awarded medals for their services to music and the community. Mrs Barnes said she was amazed and humbled by the honour.

The couple's decades-long relationship has been built on their enduring creative partnership and dedication to passing on a passion for the arts to a new generation of creatives.

The couple's children, Heather Price and Ben Barnes, now play bass and drums in the Adamstown Uniting Church's big band, led and arranged by Mr Barnes.

"It's nice for a teacher to feel like they have helped someone," Mrs Barnes said, "But to know that fulfilment that is happening for them when they're actually getting it ... when you see them getting even close to that, you just know how fulfilling it is; it feels like what you've been put on the earth for."

"Music is something that is for an audience," Mr Barnes said, "You get something out of it for yourself, but really, music is there to be performed and listened to by other people.

"When we went through that time with the cancer, I can't remember ever sitting down and specifically saying what we were going to do after this. I think the idea was that we had been given a second chance, so let's do something with it, and that's when things really took off for Jenny. I absolutely loved that time."

To read more about Newcastle's Australia Day Honours recipients, click here.