Barbara Kolb

Born in Connecticut, Barbara Kolb attended the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford, where she received her B.M. (cum laude) and M.M. degrees. She was the recipient of numerous awards, including three Tanglewood Fellowships, four MacDowell Colony Fellowships, and two Guggenheim Fellowships. Kolb became the first American woman to receive the Rome Prize (1969-71) in music composition. She was also awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for a year of study in Vienna.

Kolb's music is characterized by interwoven, impressionistic textures and a freely atonal yet deeply expressive harmonic language. Many of her works drew upon ideas and images from literature or the visual arts.

Among the many commissions Kolb received during the 1970s were those from the Koussevitzky Foundation, the New York State Council for the Arts, the Washington Performing Arts Society, and the Fromm Foundation (1970, 1980). She was awarded grants from the Institute of Arts and Letters (1973) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1972, 1974, 1979, 1989, 1992, and 2002).

Her music was performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Pierre Boulez; Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with Robert Shaw; Seattle Symphony under Gerard Schwarz; and the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and St. Louis Symphony, all under Leonard Slatkin.

From 1979 to 1982, Kolb served as artistic director of "Music New to New York" at the Third Street Music School Settlement, a contemporary music series focused on composers living outside New York City. In 1983-84, she spent nine months in residence at IRCAM, where she received a commission for a chamber ensemble and computer-generated tape. The resulting work, Millefoglie, premiered in Paris at the Centre Georges-Pompidou on June 5, 1985, with Piotr Eötvös conducting. Millefoglie was subsequently performed in major cities such as Amsterdam, Brussels, Cologne, Helsinki, Montreal, Vienna, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and Tokyo.

In 1984-85, Kolb held the post of visiting professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music. In 1986, she created a music theory course for the Blind and Physically Impaired Program under the auspices of the Library of Congress.

Kolb's Umbrian Colors for violin and guitar premiered was premiered in 1986 by Pina Carmirelli and David Starobin (for whom it was composed) at the Marlboro Music Festival, while her work Yet That Things Go Round, commissioned by the Fromm Foundation and the New York Chamber Symphony, premiered at the 92nd Street Y in May 1987, with Gerard Schwarz conducting. That same year, she received the prestigious Kennedy Center Friedheim Award for Millefoglie. In 1989, she was commissioned to write an organ work, Cloudspin, for the Cleveland Museum of Art's 75th anniversary, which premiered in 1991 at the Schlosskirche in Bayreuth, Germany.

Her piano concerto Voyants, commissioned by Radio France, was first performed in 1991 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Its US premiere took place in 1992 at the Kennedy Center, and it was later performed in Austria, Rome, and at the 'Imagine' festival in Memphis. Another notable commission, All In Good Time, was written for the New York Philharmonic's 150th anniversary and premiered in 1994 under Leonard Slatkin. Slatkin also conducted the work with the St. Louis and San Francisco symphonies.

Kolb collaborated with filmmaker Jim Herbert on Cantico, a film based on the life of St. Francis of Assisi, which won first prize in the visual essays category at the 1983 American Film Festival. She also collaborated on other projects, including the ballet New York Moonglow and ToDay, a work based on the life of Billie Holiday. Her choral work Virgin Mother Creatrix, with original poetry by Sharon Mesmer, was commissioned by Indiana University of Pennsylvania and premiered in 1998 at the International Festival of Women Composers.

From 2001-04, Barbara Kolb was composer-in-residence in Providence under the auspices of a Meet The Composer New Residencies grant. Her constituents were Festival Ballet Providence, WaterFire Providence, and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She also founded and directed the new music series "Vibe of the Venue," which showcased works by Rhode Island composers and invited artists. In 2005, she received a MacColl/Johnson Fellowship and various other grants from the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts.

Barbara Kolb's music is published by Boosey & Hawkes.