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John La Barbera Bio/List of Credits
For more than three decades, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer/arranger John La Barbera, has enchanted audiences throughout the United States, Europe and South America. Born in New York City, he discovered at the early age of 10 the alluring beauty of the guitar and at 13, he formed his first rock band called “The Fugitivesâ€, who had their debut at the New York 1964-65 World’s Fair. By the time he was 16 he was very fortunate to meet the great blues guitar genius, the legendary Reverend Gary Davis, at the Washington Square Church in Greenwich Village, in Manhattan, and was invited to play in a folk music performance with him. John continued to pursue studying music and after graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree in classical guitar and composition from the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut, he was awarded a scholarship to continue his graduate studies in Florence and Siena, Italy. While living in Italy during the 1970’s, he became the full time guitarist for the group “Pupi e Fresedde, and in 1979 recorded with them La Terra del Rimorso (the Land of Remorse), one of the fist albums of the Italian folk music revival movement. From Classical to Jazz, from Medieval to Flamenco, from the music of the Renaissance to Italian Folk Songs to the captivating rhythms and melodies of Brazil – In the words of the Woodstock Times " La Barbera is North American born with the dance of music in his fingertips. His articulations on either instrument, intimate and classically fine, are filled with the light of a born Latino."
As a composer, La Barbera has won several awards and commissions. The Italian Oral History Institute awarded him in 2005, for his extraordinary role in the transmission and translation of Italian oral history in America. From the Jerome Foundation he was commissioned to write a work for the ETHOS Percussion ensemble, The Marimba’Ba Suite for percussion, which premiered in 2001 and released on their CD Sol Tunnels; in 1996 by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Martin Gruss Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts in New York, to compose The Dance of the Ancient Spider, which premiered at Alice Tully Hall. His music for Marimba and Dumbeck, Danza del Fuego, was also recorded by percussionists Yousef Sheronick and Joseph Gramley on Sheronik’s CD: Silk Thread. His song Sun Goes Down, with the collaboration of jazz-fusion violinist Joe Deninzon, was a finalist in the Jazz category for the John Lennon Songwriting Contest of 2005 as well as winning several other important songwriting competitions. Jazz harmonica player Enrich Granafei together with Fred Hirsh, Marc Johnson and Adam Nussbaum have also recorded his music.
Film composing credits include: What’s Up Scarlet? (2005) directed by Antonio Caldarella, produced by open City films and Big Time PictureCompany; Documentary film Sacco and Vanzetti (2005) by director/producer Peter Miller and Willowpond films for PBS; Pane Amaro (2005) by Gianfranco Norelli and Eurus Productions for RAI-National Italian TV network; Children of Fate (1992) nominated for best Documentary feature in the 1994 Academy Awards and winner of the 1993 Sundance Film Festival; La Festa, produced by NJTV for PBS; Tarantella, starring Mira Sorvino; He appears together with legendary singer Jimmy Roselli in the Italian and American production of Neapolitan Heart (2000), a film about the Neapolitan song.
His Theater credits as composer-sound designer, includes several off- Broadway productions: Souls of Naples, starring John Turturro, produced by the Theater for a New Audience at the New Duke Theater on 42nd Street, directed by Roman Paska; co-Musical Director for Martha Clark’s Kaos (Pirandello Project); produced by The New York Theater Workshop; co-arranger for Elizabeth Swados’ production of Missionaries;The Misadventures of Peter Pan and Captain Maledetto (La Mamma Theater and Dario D’Ambrosi’s Teatro Patologico di Roma); After the Rain (Theater 4-Red Hudson company); Retzach, The Gift,Pushing Through, The Homecoming Project, Federico Garcia Lorca’s YERMA, with Voicetheater, NY; The Voyage of the Black Madonna, The Adventures of Don Giovanni and Pulcinella, Dance of the Ancient Spider, La Lupa- The She-Wolf, Stabat Mater-Donna di Paradiso and Earth, Sun and Moon with his Italian Music and Theater Company, I Giullari Di Piazza.
Commenting on the 1996 world premiere of his opera "Stabat Mater- Donna di Paradiso" at the Cathedral of St.John the Divine in New York CityNew York Times critic, James Oestreich wrote "..La Barbera fitted all of this out with a kiky new score. it was slickly produced and smoothly executed.... his 4 part setting of the ancient Stabat Mater text made for a touching leitmotif..." America Oggi the Italian dailyhailed " The music to the Stabat Mater, composed by John La Barbera, is full of musical spirit and soul, and he has used to his fullest, rhythms and instruments from various parts of the world."
LaBarbera has performed in concert halls around the world including: The Montreal Jazz Festival in Canada, in Brazil for SESC in Sao Paulo, and the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, in the US at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Felt Forum, Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum, Smithsonian Institute, UCLA, the Field Museum in Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts, the San Francisco World Music Festival, Central Park Summer Stage, the Jones Beach Theater, and in Eastern Europe, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland.
One of the most sought after studio musician in New York City, La Barbera has performed and recorded with world class musicians and singers including: American Folk Singer Judy Collins; Tsiddi Le Loka, South African vocalist and star from Broadway’s The Lion King; Susan Mc Keown, Irish Traditional Singer/Songwriter; Visual Artist Matthew Barney; Palestinian oud virtuoso and violinist, Simon Shaheen; from Italy: Maria Carta, Pupi e Fressedde and vocalist/percussionist Alessandra Belloni; Brazilian guitar duo DUOFEL and guitarist Paulo Freire; Jazz artists Mark Gross and Mulgrew Miller; master percussionist Glen Velez, and Yousif Sheronick; Bansuri flutist Steve Gorn; Russian vocalist Masha Itkina; Countertenor Robert Crowe; and composer/organist of the Cathedral of St. John Divine: Dorothy Papadakos.
He is the co-founder, musical director, composer-arranger of the Italian music and theater troupe "I Giullari di Piazza, founded in 1979 with Alessandra Belloni. Since 1988, I Giullari Di Piazza are “artists in residence at New York City’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. They are also artists-in-residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, in Katonah, New York. He is currently on the faculty of Bergen Community College, in Paramus, New Jersey, andconducts workshops and lectures on Acoustic guitar styles, ethnomusicology, Italian traditional music, and writes for Acoustic Guitar magazine. He has taught at The Julius Hartt School of Music (University of Hartford); The Guitar Study Center of the New School in N.Y.; Sessione Sienese in Siena, Italy; SASI in Bratislava, Slovakia; and SESC in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
