Jennifer Barker’s Research Leave
Dr. Jennifer Barker, Associate Professor of Music Theory/Composition, was on sabbatical for the 2006-2007 academic year. During that time, she traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand on an eight-week lecture/filming tour, and to the United Kingdom on a three-week lecture tour. In Australasia, she was an invited guest speaker on the Exxon-Mobile Lecture Series at the National Institute of Education in Singapore, as well as at The Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore. She was also a guest speaker at The Sydney Conservatorium - University of Sydney in Australia and The New Zealand School of Music. She was invited to meet with the composition faculty at Hong Kong Baptist University, The University of Wollongong in Australia and The University of Melbourne in Australia. She was also a guest of Trevor Green, the Executive Director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. In addition to lecturing, Dr. Barker and her husband, freelance cameraman John Palmer, received a grant to fund the filming of footage in Australasia, to be utilized in partnership with the composition of a new work by Dr. Barker for a future DVD. Dr. Barker’s three-week tour to the United Kingdom included guest lectures at The University of Glasgow in Scotland, Napier University in Scotland and The University of Sussex in England.
- Dr. Jennifer Barker
In addition to touring, Dr. Barker completed composition commissions and continued to work on her opera. She received a 2007 Established Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts, an ASCAP award for a number of performances of her compositions, and was the winner of the Relâche ensemble’s 2006 Philadelphia Commissions Project. Together with her husband she created a ‘Composition at UD’ podcast that can be viewed on the University of Delaware podcast site and features compositions by UD students, performed by UD students. She also attended the University of Delaware Summer Faculty Institute.
During her sabbatical there were numerous premieres and performances of her compositions, most notably the premiere and subsequent performances of Effigies by Dr. David Herman in Temple Church, London; the premiere of sair wrocht wi’ lilt by Relâche and Prof. Daniel Cole in Philadelphia; performances of Suilean a’ Chloinne by The Bay Youth Symphony in Virginia and at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival in Scotland; performances of Nollaig by the Fort Collins Symphony Orchestra and a massed choir of Colorado school children; the premiere of umurangi-kikorangi at the 2007 International Double Reed Society National Conference; a variety of American state performances of Geenyoch Ballant by Prof. Julie Nishimura and Dr. Kevin Robert Orr; and several United Kingdom performances of Blue Waters by BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Principal Percussionist Heather Corbett. She also received a request for her Nollaig score from the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and The St. Louis Children’s Choirs, for performance in December 2007.