Category

Compositions by Barbara Harbach

Symphony for Ferguson, Symphony No. 10

Commissioned by the Missouri Humanities Council the Symphony for Ferguson was premiered October 2015 at the Touhill Performing Arts Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis by the University Orchestra under the direction of Dr James Richards.  The commission...

read more

Celestial Symphony, Symphony No. 9

The Celestial Symphony is an arrangement of excerpts from Barbara Harbach’s silent film score, The Birth, Life and Death of Christ, which was premiered in 2014.  The film was directed by the trailblazing French filmmaker, Alice Guy Blaché (1873-1968), and is...

read more

The Scarlet Letter for Orchestra, Symphony No. 8

Based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter (1850), Symphony No. 8 contains musical portraits of the three main characters: Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale. I. The first movement, Hester, highlights the conflicts that Hester faced:...

read more

The Birth, Life and Death of Christ

The Birth, Life and Death of Christ 1906 for Chamber Ensemble and silent film of the same name. (Total time 36:23) Director: Alice Guy Blaché Premiered at the St. Louis International Film Festival, St. Louis Art Museum, 2014 Released on MSR Classics 1544 Harbach...

read more

Were You There

Written in 1977, Were You There is a poignant arrangement of the spiritual with a plaintive evocation and subtle jazz chordings.

read more

O Pioneers! for Orchestra, Symphony No. 7

Symphony No. 7 “O Pioneers!” was adapted from Harbach’s opera, O Pioneers! An American Opera, based on Willa Cather’s lyrical novel of tragedy and transformation, O Pioneers!  In 2014, Harbach transcribed three songs from the opera to paint musical portraits of the...

read more

Jubilee Symphony for Orchestra, Symphony No. 5

Jubilee Symphony was commissioned by the University of Missouri–St. Louis for their 50th Jubilee Anniversary, 1963-2013. The symphony was premiered October 9, 2013. The first movement, I. Bellerive, takes its name from the beautiful Bellerive Country Club which became...

read more

​Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin

Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin is a new musical meditation on the poetry of Andreas Embirikos, in English translation by poets Stefene Russell and Chris King. The piece sets to music a selection of prose poems from Embirikos’ 1935 masterpiece Blast Furnace, which Nikos...

read more