WFIU’s featured contemporary composer for February is Barbara Harbach.
Harbach is a composer, harpsichordist, and organist who completed her doctoral work at the Eastman School of Music and is now a professor of music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Her compositions include works for symphony orchestra, string orchestra, organ, harpsichord, choir and chamber ensemble, and has arranged Baroque pieces for brass and organ. She has written two symphonies: Veneration for Orchestra and One of Ours–A Cather Symphony; a musical, Booth; and the opera O Pioneers!
Harbach has given organ and harpsichord recitals in North America, Asia, Europe and Siberia, and she has made numerous recordings of organ and harpsichord music. The American Record Guide wrote “She deserves to be recognized as one of the eminent Bach players among organists of the present day, in both the United States and in Europe.”
She is involved in the research, publication, and recording of manuscripts of 18th-century keyboard composers as well as historical and contemporary women composers. Harbach is the editor of Women of Note Quarterly, and she founded Vivace Press, a music publishing company specializing in works by women and other traditionally under-represented composers.
WFIU will feature music by Barbara Harbach throughout the month of February.
