Carol Barnett

Carol Barnett’s music has been called audacious and engaging. Her varied catalog includes works for solo voice, piano, chorus, diverse chamber ensembles, orchestra, and wind  ensemble.

She was awarded the 2003 Nancy Van de Vate International Prize for Opera for her chamber opera, Snow, and her musical theater work Meeting at Seneca Falls was featured at the 2006 Diversity Festival in Red Wing MN. The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass, commissioned in 2006 by VocalEssence and written with Marisha Chamberlain, had its Carnegie Hall debut in February 2013, and has become a favorite across the country. Recent works include Will’s Ladies, a Shakespeare cycle for mezzo-soprano Clara Osowski and the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra; A Monument to Adam, for the Cantata Singers; Summer 2020, for the 2022 Biennial National Convention of the American Guild of Organists; and When All FallsSilent, which received a Special Commendation in the King’s Singers Competition.

Barnett is a charter member of the American Composers Forum and a graduate of the  University of Minnesota, where she studied composition with Dominick Argento and Paul  Fetler. She was composer-in-residence with the Dale Warland Singers from 1992 to 2001, and  a member of the adjunct faculty at Augsburg College from 2000 to 2015.