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The American harpsichordist, organist, composer and teacher, Barbara Harbach, holds academic degrees from Pennsylvania State University (B.A.), Yale University (M.M.A.). She also studied at the Musikhochschule of Frankfurt, Germany, and the Eastman School of Music (D.M.A.).
Barbara Harbach has has toured extensively as both concert organist and harpsichordist. Her appearances include recitals throughout the USA and Canada, Korea, Japan, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Russian Siberia, as well as solo and continuo roles with symphony orchestras. Her lively performances and recordings have captured the imagination of many American composers, and the body of work written for and dedicated to Harbach is substantial. Musical America has called her “nothing short of brilliant,” and Gramophone has cited her as an “acknowledged interpreter - and, indeed, muse - of modern harpsichord music.” The American Record Guide said, "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 was host of the weekly television music series Palouse Performance seen throughout the Inland Northwest.
Barbara Harbach is Professor of Music at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Since 2000, she has been a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. In 2002, she received an honorary doctorate in music, honoris causa, from Wilmington College (WC), Wilmington, Ohio.
As a composer, Barbara Harbach has written symphonies, works for chamber ensemble, string orchestra, organ, harpsichord; musicals, choral anthems, a film score, a modern ballet, and many arrangements for brass and organ of various Baroque works. In 2004, her first symphony, Veneration for Orchestra, was premiered at Wilmington College, Ohio, and her second symphony, One of Ours - a Cather Symphony, was premiered by the Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra.
Barbara Harbach is also involved in the research, editing and publication of manuscripts of 18th century keyboard composers. She editor of Women of Note Quarterly, and has directed three Women in Music symposia at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In 1989 she founded Vivace Press, a music publishing company renowned for its interest in works by women and other traditionally under-represented composers.Her work is available in both recorded and published form through Naxos Records, Gasparo Records, Kingdom Records, Albany Records, Northeastern Records, Hester Park, Robert King Music, Elkan-Vogel, Augsburg Publishing, Agape Music and Vivace Press.
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