Dr Barbara B. Heyman - Music Historian Barbara B. Heyman is a music historian based in New York city, USA. Her award-winning biography Samuel Barber: The Composer and His Music (Oxford University Press, 1994) has become a standard in music history scholarship. "The foundation of all Barber scholarship forever, to which all writers on American music will be turning constantly and for which we shall be immensely grateful. I was completely absorbed in the reading of it." - Michael Steinberg, San Francisco Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra "Striking....A clear, rich, and accessible pool of indispensable information....A boon and a triumph." - Institute for Studies in American Music Newsletter Formerly director of the Office of College Information and Publications at Brooklyn College, New York, Dr. Heyman was been awarded a 2006 grant by the US National Endowment for the Humanities to pursue her studies of Samuel Barber. Her new book, “A Comprehensive Thematic Catalog of the Complete Works of the American Composer Samuel Barber (1910–1981)”, will be published in 2010. An accomplished violinist and pianist, Barbara Heyman earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Barnard College. She went on to receive a master’s degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the City University of New York. Her biography of Barber was based on her doctoral research. Barbara joined the Brooklyn College administration as an editor in 1982 and was appointed director of the Office of College Information and Publications in 1999. Since January 2006 she has been pursuing her research full time, much of it at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In this audiovisual pre-concert lecture specially prepared for the National Concert Hall, Dublin, Barbara will focus on the particular piano works being playing by Lilia Boyadjieva in Friday’s recital —including the circumstances of their composition, Vladimir Horowitz’s involvement with the Sonata, and the amusing origin of the titles of the two unpublished piano pieces. By weaving Barber’s own words into her lecture, as well as playing excerpts of him singing lieder, recorded in 1938, Barbara Heyman will show us how Samuel Barber’s music is especially relevant for us today and why it will endure. For more information about Dr Barbara B. Heyman visit the Brooklyn College website. | 
