Barber was born April 6, 1952, in Abilene, Texas, to Carolyn Grisham Barber, a pianist and music teacher, and Harwell Barber, a businessman and philanthropist. His cousin is the author John Grisham, and his godfather is flamenco guitarist Jim Jennings. Barber started playing the piano at the age of three, began playing guitar at eleven and started writing music at the age of twelve. At fifteen, Barber went to Sewanee Military Academy in Tennessee, where he was the only student studying music theory.[citation needed] He attended summer school in 1971 at the University of Texas to study music composition, then attended Southwest Texas State University, where he studied music composition under composer Russell Riepe.[citation needed]
Career
In 1974, Barber began a friendship with Gideon Waldrop, the Dean of Juilliard, however passed up an invitation to attend Juilliard at that time. He was in a band with Eric Johnson called The Electromagnets from 1974–1976 and in 1977, Barber moved to New York City, reconvened with Dean Waldrop, began monitoring classes at Juilliard and was accepted to study music composition and orchestration privately with John Corigliano. He was the keyboardist and arranger for Christopher Cross from 1983–1988 and during that time composed thirteen original scores for Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre, under the direction of Van Dyke Parks. He was nominated for an ACE award for the episode, "3 Little Pigs". In the early 1990s, Barber composed for the BBC's National Geographic Explorer with David Attenborough and Mike Salisbury under the direction of producer Michael deGruy. In 1996, he began a mentorship with Joe Zawinul, and in the late 1990s he toured again with Eric Johnson. In 2001, Barber became a founder and artistic director of the Barbwire Music Project, an Austin, Texas–based non-profit commissioning, presenting and educational organization for contemporary American music.[1] In 2004, he was inducted into the Austin Music Awards Hall of Fame.[2] In 2011, he released his album, Astral Vinyl, on Navona Records.[3][4] Barber currently resides in Austin, Texas.[5]
Selected works
In total, Barber has worked on more than 170 album projects[citation needed] and multiple television and movie scores.[6]
1986 Tall Tales & Legends – "Pecos Bill", "Davy Crockett", "Casey at the Bat" Episodes – Composer
1984–1985 Faerie Tale Theatre – 13 episodes including "The Emperor's New Clothes" (1985), "The Three Little Pigs" (1985), "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" (1984) – Composer
