Joan Barber Biography
I have been singing all my life - in fact they say I sang before I spoke. Growing up in New York to music loving parents I went to Broadway shows, concerts and even opera at a young age. There I fell in love with Mary Martin, Jerry Orbach, Beverly Sills, Luciano Pavarotti and many more. So it was only natural that I would become a performer myself. I graduated from the University of Michigan, Phi Beta Kappa, with a degree in Speech (they didn’t have a Musical Theatre Department then), got my Equity card my senior year, and started performing professionally.
I went on to do children’s theatre with the nationally renowned Prince Street Players and worked in summer stock, dinner theatre, regional theatre and opera all over the country. I made my Broadway debut as Aldonza in MAN OF LA MANCHA starring the original Don Quixote, Richard Kiley. Other Don Quixotes I have partnered with include Raul Julia and John Raitt. (Go the the GALLERY for more about me as a singer/ actor). You can hear my “voice” in the Disney films BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, HUNCHBACK, POCAHONTAS, ALADDIN AND THE KING OF THIEVES, and in LEGALLY BLONDE II: RED, WHITE AND BLONDE.
I started teaching as an acting instructor at various colleges in the Lehigh Valley, PA. The study of the voice has always been fascinating to me and I began teaching singing through working with my partner in Allentown, Musical Director, Chaz Barber. I have grown enormously as a teacher by studying with great vocal pedagogues like Cynthia Hoffmann, Richard Miller and David Jones ; apprenticed under the tutelage of H. Wesley Balk, the inventor of Performing Power and have taken lessons from three of the greatest teachers of Speech Level Singing (Roger Love, Adrienne Angel and Florence Riggs). I am currently a member of the Mind and Body Music School, which advances the education of musicians via the Alexander Technique. (Go to PHILOSOPHY for more about my studio’s goals and visions).
Currently located in Lewes, DE; I also teach online via Zoom. My students have included many Broadway performers, three “Scrooges” from A CHRISTMAS CAROL (F. Murray Abraham, Frank Langella, and Tim Curry), the ballerinas from the NYCity Ballet’s WEST SIDE STORY SUITE as well as WSSS dancers and singers throughout the country and as far away as Denmark. My current students perform regularly in their high school musicals and in local community theatre and professional productions. They also coach with me and my husband Norm Golden for college auditions and enter into some of the most prestigious Musical Theatre programs in the country.