Born and raised in the west Texas town of Abilene, Stephen Barber's musical career spans a diverse list of today's leading musicians and ensembles from Keith Richards, Willie Nelson, Giberto Gil, and Ornette Coleman to the folk ensemble of Trakia (Bulgaria), the Banda Nationale (Cuba), London Symphony Orchestra, American Boychoir, and the Czech Radio Orchestra. He has received commissions and grants from the Concert Artist Guild, Rockefeller Foundation, and The University of Texas, and his new arrangements can be heard if you listen to your radio for more than an hour or so.
Barber is the founder and artistic director of the Barbwire Music Project, an Austin, Texas-based non-profit commissioning, presenting, and educational organization dedicated to providing a needed wellspring for contemporary American concert music in Texas.
Asked about his role as composer for the film, Last Best Hope, Barber says, "I grew up down the street and around the corner from Doris and Bill and have known the Grosvenor family my entire life. From a very early age, I heard fragments of the story about Bill's escape, his imprisonment, and evasion during the Second World War, but had no inkling of the epic tale that would be unfurled in the film."
"As a composer I have always been interested in music that mimes, and in a certain sense, describes that wonderful phenomenon that lies in the heart of language; sound becoming sense. And boy howdy(!), this was some kind of sensory overload. Last Best Hope was a round-trip ticket on a luge - back into the mind's eye of a little boy with my best friend, David Grosvenor, and overwhelmed with a big, big world out there called "Last Best Hope."
