Winter Solstice

John T. La Barbera guitarist, composer, educator, author and concert artist has performed to audiences throughout the U.S., Europe and South America with both classical, traditional Southern Italian folk and original music. 
Awards and commissions as composer: The Jerome Foundation, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Martin Gruss Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts, Meet the Composer, ASCAP and awarded as one of the first transcribers of Southern Italian folk music in America from The Italian Oral History Institute.
Film composer credits include: The Bounty Hunter (Columbia Pictures); Academy Award Nominated feature documentary Children of Fate; Sister Italy; Sacco and Vanzetti; Drifting; Pane Amaro; What’s Up Scarlet?; La Festa; and Tarantella.
Off-Broadway composer and musical director credits include: Souls of Naples, starring John Turturro (The Duke Theater on 42 Street); Kaos, directed by Martha Clarke at The New York Theater Workshop; productions at La MaMa and Theater for a New City.
Original folk operas include: Stabat Mater: Donna di Paradiso; The Voyage of the Black Madonna; The Dance of the Ancient Spider and The Adventures of Don Giovanni and Pulcinella.
Published works include: Italian Folk Music for Mandolin; Traditional Southern Italian Mandolin and Fiddle Tunes (Mel Bay Publications)
His virtuosity on a wide variety of fretted string instruments has enabled him to
record for some of Hollywood’s most prominent film composers; Disney World in Shanghai China; and numerous jingles for TV and radio. He holds a M.M. from William Paterson University and a B.M. from The Hartt School of Music. He is an adjunct professor at the Bergen Community College in Paramus, and artist in residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts.
