Full Name
Carolyn Barber
Job Title
Ron and Carol Cope Professor of Music and Director of Bands
Company
Univ of Nebraska-Lincoln
Speaker Bio
Carolyn A. Barber is the Ron and Carol Cope Professor of Music and Director of Bands in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Glenn Korff School of Music. She earned a B.M. in horn performance at Northwestern University, an M.M. in horn performance from Yale University, and returned to Northwestern to earn her D.M. in conducting as a student of John P. Paynter and Victor Yampolsky.

Dr. Barber began her career as a lecturer and assistant to the dean of the Northwestern University School of Music. Her duties included teaching advanced conducting and directing the university’s Concert Band. Prior to her appointment at UNL, Dr. Barber also served as the director of bands at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Apart from her conducting and teaching at UW-L, Dr. Barber served for five years as the principal horn of the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Barber has been a presenter at the Midwest Clinic, CBDNA, ASTA, and NAfME
conferences, state music educators conventions, and district training workshops nationwide. She
has received numerous awards for musical and academic achievement, including the Hixson-
Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts Distinguished Teaching Award, a Hixson-Lied
Professorship, multiple National Band Association Citations of Excellence, and a United States
Navy Good Conduct Medal – an unusual distinction for someone who has never had the honor to
serve in the military. In addition, she was named the 2019 Martha Daniel Newell Scholar at
Georgia College where she spent a semester developing a course and engaging in research
focusing on the creative process.

Her writing has been published in the Journal of Band Research, and she is a regular contributor
to the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band reference series. In addition to her
scholarly activities, Dr. Barber maintains an active schedule as a guest conductor throughout the
United States and Canada. She is state chair for CBDNA, a peer reviewer for the Journal of the
Conductors Guild, past president of the Nebraska State Bandmasters Association, and a past
president of the Big Ten Band Directors Association.