Barbara is Assistant Professor-in-Residence of studio trumpet at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where she is co-principal trumpet with the San Francisco Wind Ensemble and principal trumpet with Ensemble Monterey. Barbara maintains an active freelance calendar, and has performed with Adele, the Las Vegas Philharmonic, the Modesto and Fremont Symphonies and the Grass Valley Music Festival.
Before joining the faculty at UNLV she lived in Rochester, New York where she taught applied trumpet and brass at Nazareth College and performed with Symphoria (formerly the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra). She also played regularly with the Skaneateles Summer Music Festival, Rochester Chamber Orchestra, Rochester Oratorio Society and the Kunde Chorale. From 2008 through 2013, she taught at the Hochstein School of Music and Dance. Barbara also teaches trumpet and music theory each summer at the Csehy Summer School of Music, which is held on the beautiful campus of Houghton College in Houghton, New York.
Barbara holds a DMA in Trumpet Performance and Literature from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with James Thompson. She earned her Master's Degree at Eastman in the studio of Charles Geyer. She is a recipient of the Eastman Performer's Certificate, and, as winner of Eastman's Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Concerto Competition, performed as soloist with the Eastman Wind Ensemble under Donald Hunsberger. She was principal trumpet with the Eastman Wind Ensemble for a recording collaboration between the EWE and the Canadian Brass. The CD for that project, Manhattan Music, was released in 2008. Barbara counts it a privilege to have played for every conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble: Frederick Fennel, Clyde Roller, Donald Hunsberger and Mark Scatterday.
Barbara was Principal Trumpet with the Albany Symphony Orchestra from 1995-1998, recording with the orchestra under the Decca and Albany Records labels. She played with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra from 2000-2003. While living in Albuquerque, she also performed regularly with the New Mexico Brass Quintet, the New Mexico Symphony Brass Quintet, the Chamber Orchestra of Albuquerque, and Opera Southwest. She has also performed with the Rochester Philharmonic and Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra.
Barbara's playing was heavily influenced by one of her earliest teachers, the late James F. Burke. A remarkable musician, Jimmy was perhaps the last of the great American cornet soloists of the 20th century. In the 1940s, he concurrently served as cornet soloist with the Edwin Franko Goldman Band, principal trumpet of the Baltimore Symphony and professor of trumpet at the Peabody Conservatory.
