Patricia Barber (born November 8, 1955) is an American songwriter, composer, singer, and pianist.

Biography

Barber's father Floyd was a jazz saxophonist who played with

Bud Freeman Lawrence "Bud" Freeman (April 13, 1906 – March 15, 1991) was an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer, known mainly for playing tenor saxophone, but also the clarinet. Biography In 1922, Freeman and some friends from high sc ...

and

Glenn Miller Alton Glen "Glenn" Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band conductor, arranger, composer, trombonist, and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Army Air Forces ...

. She played saxophone and piano from a young age, sang in musicals in high school, and studied piano at the University of Iowa in the early 1970s. From there Barber went to Chicago and began performing regularly in bars and clubs. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship in

music composition Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called ...

in March 2003, an unusual accomplishment for someone working in the field of popular songwriting. The Guggenheim allowed her to devote time to a song cycle based on Ovid's ''Metamorphoses''. She is married to musicologist Martha Feldman.

Awards and honors

* She was given a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 2003 in the field of Creative Arts – Music Composition. * She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.

Discography

An asterisk (*) indicates that the year is that of release. Source:

References

External links

Official website

2005 concert
recorded at the SFJazz Jazz Festival
Review of Mythologies by JazzChicago.net
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