Barbara White (composer)
{{Short description|American composer (born 1965)}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox academic
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1965|12|3}}
| birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
| occupation = {{flatlist|
- Composer
- clarinetist
- musicologist
}}
| awards = Guggenheim Fellowship (2003)
| alma_mater = {{ublist|
}}
| thesis_title = Music Drama on the Concert Stage: A Study of Judith Weir's "The Consolations of Scholarship"
| thesis_year = 1997
| employer = Princeton University
| module = {{Infobox musical artist | embed=yes
| genre = Classical music
| instrument = Clarinet
}}
}}
Barbara White (born December 3, 1965) is an American composer, clarinetist, and musicologist. A 2003 Guggenheim Fellow, she has released four albums, all but one of which she performs as the clarinetist, and she is a professor of music at Princeton University.
Biography
Barbara White was born on December 3, 1965, in Boston, Massachusetts.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6QUlAQAAIAAJ |title=Reports of the President and the Treasurer |publisher=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |year=2004 |page=137-138}} She obtained her BA (1987) from Radcliffe College and MA (1994) and PhD (1997) from University of Pittsburgh; her doctoral dissertation was titled Music Drama on the Concert Stage: A Study of Judith Weir's "The Consolations of Scholarship".{{Cite journal |last=White |first=Barbara |date=2000 |title=Music drama on the concert stage: voice, character and performance in Judith Weir's The Consolations of Scholarship |journal=Cambridge Opera Journal |volume=12 |issue=1 |pages=55–79 |doi=10.1017/S0954586700000550}}
During her early career, White was awarded a 1995 American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Young Composer Award, as well as both a 1997 Charles Ives Prize and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Interdisciplinary Arts Award. Richard Buell of the Boston Globe said that her 1999 composition "No Man's Land" "took us back to the dear dead days of multiphonics and the modish unleasing of "new" tone colors, particularly from instruments you didn't think had a single chord to declare".{{Cite news |last=Buell |first=Richard |date=2000-03-29 |title=Fromm Players introduce compelling, creative pieces |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/428662339/ |work=The Boston Globe |page=C5 |via=Newspapers.com}} She was later a 1999-2000 Continental Harmony Composer-in-Residence and a 2000 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellow, as well as a 2000-2001 Harvard Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellow.{{Cite web |title=Barbara White |url=https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/people/barbara-white |access-date=2025-01-23 |website=Harvard Radcliffe Institute}}
In The New York Times{{'}} review of Speculum Musicae's 2002 concert at Merkin Hall, Paul Griffiths praised White's piece "Learning to See" as "a real discovery" because "she writes no more notes than she needs, and she has a way of making straightforward quotations (from Varése, Stravinsky and others) her own".{{Cite news |last=Griffiths |first=Paul |date=2002-10-16 |title=MUSIC REVIEW; Two Composers' Homages To Famed Artist Friends: MUSIC REVIEW |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/2230238409 |work=New York Times |id={{ProQuest|2230238409}} |via=ProQuest}} In 2002, her composition album When the Smoke Clears was released; it later received a re-release from New World Records in 2007.{{Cite web |title=NWCR893 - Barbara White: When The Smoke Clears |url=https://nwr-site-liner-notes.s3.amazonaws.com/nwcr893.pdf |access-date=2025-01-23 |website=New World Records}} Payton MacDonald of the American Record Guide said of the album: "Barbara White creates energetic and kinetic music, reflecting her interest in performing and martial arts ... White takes advantage of the timbral possibilities and comes up with some welcome colors. She's also not a bad performer".{{Cite magazine |last=MacDonald |first=Payton |date=2003 |title=The Newest Music |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/223399306 |magazine=American Record Guide |page=241-243 |via=ProQuest |volume=66 |issue=1|id={{ProQuest|223399306}} }} In 2003, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition.{{Cite news |date=2003-04-20 |title=Foundation honors fellowships winners |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/224661055/ |work=The Courier-News |page=25 |via=Newspapers.com}} In 2004, she released her another album, Apocryphal Stories.
In 2013, White's opera Weakness, based on the Irish mythological story Ces Ulad, was released as part of the album White: Weakness – Cowan: Macha by Albany Records; Barry Kilpatrick called the album's music "strange but fascinating", noting that "it fits perfectly with this very strange story".{{Cite magazine |last=Kilpatrick |first=Barry |date=2014 |title=WHITE: Weakness; COWAN: Macha |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1511023654 |magazine=American Record Guide |page=178 |via=ProQuest |volume=77 |issue=2|id={{ProQuest|1511023654}} }} In 2021, she released Farewell to Music, a shakuhachi album featuring Riley Lee.
White has been a member of the Princeton University faculty since 1998, when she became assistant professor of music there before eventually becoming full professor. She was the Harold Willis Dodds University Preceptor from 2001 to 2004. Her academic work focuses on the relationship between culture and the basics of music, with examples including art, dance, and film, and she has published several articles in scholarly journals. She teaches composition and music theory in Princeton.{{Cite web |title=Barbara White |url=https://music.princeton.edu/people/barbara-white/ |access-date=2025-01-23 |website=Princeton University Department of Music}}
As of 2018, White lived in Princeton, New Jersey.{{Cite web |last=Oteri |first=Frank J. |date=2018-03-01 |title=Barbara White: A Plea for Compassion |url=https://newmusicusa.org/nmbx/barbara-white-a-plea-for-compassion/ |access-date=2025-01-23 |website=New Music USA}}
Discography
| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;" |
| scope="col" style="width:12em;" | Title
! scope="col" | Year ! scope="col" | Details ! scope="col" | Ref. |
|---|
| scope="row"| Apocryphal Stories {{small|(as composer)}} | 2004 |
|
| scope="row"| When the Smoke Clears {{small|(as composer and clarinetist)}} | 2007 |
|
| scope="row"| White: Weakness – Cowan: Macha {{small|(as composer with Tom Cowan and clarinetist)}} | 2013 |
|
| scope="row"| Farewell to Music {{small|(as composer and clarinetist)}} | 2021 |
|
References
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Category:American women classical composers
Category:21st-century American classical composers
Category:20th-century American women composers
Category:21st-century American women composers
Category:American classical clarinetists
Category:21st-century American clarinetists
Category:American women musicologists
Category:20th-century American musicologists
Category:21st-century American musicologists
Category:Radcliffe College alumni
Category:University of Pittsburgh alumni
Category:Princeton University faculty