ALL ABOUT BARBARA

Singer of Songs. She/her.

Soprano Barbara Paterson returned to Aotearoa-NZ from New York City in 2016, having worked steadily as an opera and concert singer across the USA for several years. Since returning to NZ, Barbara has sung for Stroma, Java Dance, Orchestra Wellington, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, the CANZ annual Nelson workshops, the SMP Ensemble, The Queen's Closet, Wanderlust Theatre, NZ Opera, the Audio Foundation, the Auckland Chamber Orchestra, Unstuck Opera, Eternity Opera, NIMBY Opera, CubaDupa, Avenue Opera, the Metamorphosis Artists, and as a soloist for choral societies around NZ. Her performances of Francis Poulenc’s “The Human Voice” for the 2020 NZ Festival of the Arts were critically acclaimed as “magnificent” and “exemplary”. Barbara can be heard as a soloist on Stephen Gallagher's acclaimed soundtrack for the 2024 anime film, "The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim". She was a 2020 Freemasons Resident Artist and a 2007 - 2008 Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist for NZ Opera.

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In addition to her busy performing work, Barbara is an Artist Teacher of Voice at Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music. She maintains busy teaching studios and is a vocal coach for the auditioned choirs at Samuel Marsden Collegiate School and Wellington East Girls' College. She is a keen promoter of community music and has conducted Wellington's Capital Choir since 2018. Barbara has a BA in German (Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington), a BMus in Voice Performance (Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music) and a MMus in Voice Pedagogy and Performance (Westminster Choir College, Princeton NJ USA) . She has also studied at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and completed a fellowship at the Académie Francis Poulenc in Tours, France.