Horn player Barbara Oldham is the founding member of Quintet of the Americas. As a member of the Quintet she has toured in over 300 cities in the Western Hemisphere and performed at Carnegie Hall, the American Music Week Series at Weill Recital Hall; the Bermuda International Festival; the Chamber Music Northwest Festival; Festival Internacional de Musica Contemporanea in Bogota; Sala Teresa Careña in Caracas; the American Composers Orchestra Sonidos de Mexico and Sonidos de Cuba Festivals; the Chautauqua Festival; the First International Congress on Women in Music; the Pan American Music Festivals at the Library of Congress and the O.A.S., Washington, D.C.; the Inter-American Festival, Puerto Rico; two Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors Festivals; the International Flute Convention; a Villa-Lobos centennial festival at Merkin Hall in NYC. She has presented solo recitals at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and the American Landmark Festivals. In 1999 she received a Brooklyn Arts Council Individual Artist Grant for a series of solo recitals. Ms. Oldham has appeared as a chamber recitalist with other groups such as the Marlboro Music Festival, St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Festival Brass, and Westchester Chamber Music Festival. She has served as a chamber music coach and given master classes during the Quintet's numerous residencies including at Northwestern University, Austin Peay State Univ. (TN) Hunter College (NYC), Butler University, St. Paul's School (NH), and Fondaçion Batuta in Colombia, the National Conservatoire in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, Special Secondary Music School, Kharkiv, Ukraine and as a faculty member of Brooklyn College.
As an orchestral player she was principal horn of the Orquesta Sinfonica de Colombia and Opera Northeast, and guest principal horn with the National Symphony of the Dominican Republic. She is presently a member of the Queens Symphony and the West End Symphony, a group performing for children. Also active as a freelance player, she has performed with Brooklyn Philharmonic, Long Island Philharmonic, Radio City Music Hall, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Joffrey Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and on Broadway for West Side Story, Woman of the Year, Cats, Aspects of Love, and Aida. She has recorded on the CRI, MMC, Newport Classic, XLNT, Opus 1, and MSR labels.
Reviews:
"Especially outstanding was the work of horn player Barbara Oldham, who covered the full register of her instrument often with brazen passages that evoked, among others, Silvestre Revueltas." ----New Music Connoisseur, Spring 2002
"If I had to select one of the musicians for highest honors, it would be Oldham. She has big, bold tone and a sweet, mellow one, depending on what's required. Heights hold no fears for her and her quick repeated notes, notably in the last movement of ...Paul Douglas' 'Foyveblas' were breath-taking... And, wonder of wonders, she never burbled..." -----Charles Staff, The Indianapolis News, October 29, 1992