Category
Compositions by Barbara Harbach
Harriet’s Story for Soprano, Violin and Piano
Harriet’s Story - remembering Harriet and Dred Scott Harriet’s Story contributes to the rich historiography of Missouri and Midwest through music. The impetus for this dramatic song cycle was the 150th anniversary of the state’s entrance into the Civil War in 1862. ...
Night Soundings for Orchestra, Symphony No. 6
Cloak of Darkness is the hour of the wolf, between night and light, just before the dawn awakens. It is believed to be the time when demons have intensified power, our nightmares are the most real, and the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fears. The only reality...
Symphony No. 4 “Gateway Festival Symphony”
Gateway Festival Symphony, 2013, is written for and dedicated to Dr. James Richards and the Gateway Festival Orchestra for their 50th Jubilee Anniversary. I. Confluencity depicts the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers with the ebb and flow of two rivers...
Nocturne noir for Piano
In the night, Nocturne noir enters the mind, where dreams and motives intertwine, ever shifting between reality and fantasy. Slow awakening from a deep sleep begins with an ascending jagged scale, becoming more insistent until block chords made of the intervals of the...
Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin for chamber Ensemble
Phantom of the Dreams’ Origin for chamber ensemble sets to music a selection of prose poems from Embirikos’ 1935 masterpiece Blast Furnace, which Nikos Stabakis translated into English in his anthology Surrealism in Greece [University of Texas Press, 2008]. The work...
Symphony No. 6 “Jubilee Symphony”
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, Bellerive, takes its name from the beautiful Bellerive Country Club which became...
A State Divided – Missouri Symphony for Orchestra, Symphony No. 3
A State Divided – a Missouri Symphony for Orchestra contributes to the historiography of Missouri through music inspired by the state’s entrance into the Civil War in 1862. The impetus for the Symphony was the 150th anniversary of the event in 2012. Each movement...
Light Out of Darkness for Women’s Choir and Piano, or Soprano and Piano
Helen Keller (1880-1968) wrote, “ I cannot remember how I felt when the light went out of my eyes. I suppose I felt it was always night and perhaps I wondered why the day did not come.” The extraordinary story of the life of Helen Keller resonates in all of us. After...
The Sounds of St. Louis – A Suite in One Movement for Lower Brass
When the St. Louis Low Brass Collective asked me to write a piece for them and the 125th Anniversary of the Sheldon 2012, I was delighted and intrigued by the coincidence that not only was it the Sheldon’s anniversary but also the Sesquicentennial of the State of...
Incantata for Chamber Ensemble
Incantata for Chamber Ensemble was inspired by Paul Muldoon’s poem, Incantata, written in memory of the artist Mary Farl Powers. The poem, published in The Annals of Chile (1994), is both an elegy and a celebration. The premiere was October 30, 2011, at the Touhill...