Bruce J. Barber II, organist will give an organ concert at Emmanuel Church, Chestertown on Friday, October 12, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 per person, ($5 for students) and are available at the door. Emmanuel Church is located at 101 N. Cross St. Chestertown.
Mr. Barber currently serves as Director of Music at Christ Church Christiana Hundred, Greenville, Delaware. Prior to his work at Christ Church, he served as Director of Cathedral Music of St. James Cathedral, Chicago, Illinois, from March 2004 until February 2015. He served as Canon Precentor and Director of Cathedral Music at the Cathedral Church of St. John, Albuquerque, New Mexico, from May 1994 until March of 2004, and he served as Parish Musician at Christ and Holy Trinity Church, Westport, Connecticut, from July 1984 until May 1994.
As an orchestral musician, Mr. Barber has performed with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the Florida Symphony Orchestra, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, and since moving to the Midwest, has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the direction of such notable maestros as Riccardo Muti, Bernard Haitink, James Conlon, David Zinman, Helmuth Rilling, Semyon Byshkov, Charles Dutoit, and Michael Tilson Thomas. An avid conductor, he has conducted a wide range of sacred music, orchestral literature and concerto repertoire ranging from Bach to Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart, Brahms to Duruflé, Bernstein and Stravinsky.
Trained as a choral and orchestral conductor, an organist and cellist, Mr. Barber holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida, and a Master of Music Degree from the Yale School of Music and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. His primary teachers have included Alexander Anderson (Rollins), Dr. Robert S. Baker and Dr. Gerre E. Hancock (Yale).
In 2010, the Cathedral Choir of St James Cathedral released its first recording in over 25 years under Barber’s direction – Arise, Shine! (MSR Classics) – which has garnered high praise in national reviews. He has made two CD recordings with the Musicians of St. Johns Cathedral, To the Creator of Light: Choral Music from the Cathedral Church of St. John and All This Time: Music for Advent and Christmas, both of which have been critically acclaimed as well.
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