David W. Barber

Not to be confused with David G. Barber (Canadian environmental scientist), or David Barber (British cricketer).

David W. Barber
Barber in 2024
Born	David William Barber (1958-03-25) March 25, 1958 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Other names	David Barber
Occupation(s)	Author, editor, journalist, composer and musician
Years active	1980–present
Known for	''Accidentals on Purpose'' (1983) ''Bach, Beethoven and the Boys'' (1986) ''When the Fat Lady Sings'' (1990) ''Getting a Handel on Messiah'' (1995) ''Hedshot'' (2023)
Website	indentpublishing.com davidwbarber.godaddysites.com

David W. Barber (born March 25, 1958) is a Canadian author, editor, journalist, composer and musician. As an author, he is known primarily for writing several books that explain classical music and its history in a humorous yet educational fashion. He has also compiled and edited several books of musical and literary quotations and literature, and is the author of a collection of short stories and two murder mystery novels. In a newspaper career spanning four decades, he worked for the Kingston Whig-Standard, Toronto's Globe and Mail, the Toronto-based National Post and Financial Post and the Toronto-based Postmedia chain.

As a composer, his works include two symphonies, a Requiem mass, a jazz mass based on the music of Dave Brubeck, numerous short choral and instrumental works, and various vocal jazz arrangements. As a musician, he sings regularly with the Toronto Chamber Choir, the evensong chapel choir of Trinity College, University of Toronto, and with various other choirs on occasion. These and other choirs have sometimes performed his compositions.

For his newspaper career, Barber used the byline David Barber. As an author and composer, he publishes as David W. Barber.

Early Life and Education

Barber was born and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the youngest of five siblings. His father, Richard (Dick) Barber (1918-1969), was a prominent Ottawa lawyer and city councillor. His mother, Mollie (née Fugler, 1922-2006), was a secretary.

Barber attended D. Roy Kennedy and Woodroffe public elementary schools, and graduated with honors from Woodroffe High School in 1976. During this time he sang as a boy treble and later countertenor in the men-and-boys choir of St. Matthew’s Anglican Church, Ottawa.

Barber moved to Kingston, Ontario, Canada in 1976 to attend Queen’s University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Music (Hons.) degree in 1980. He concentrated his studies in voice, music history and composition. He was the first countertenor admitted to the Queen’s music voice department.

While at Queen’s he sang with the Chamber Singers and the Queen's Choral Ensemble, also forming his own quartet, the Queen’s Singers. His voice teachers included bass/baritone Randall Marsh, soprano Mary Lou Fallis and countertenors Tony Browning and Theodore Gentry.

After graduation, Barber briefly studied privately in London, England, with countertenor James Bowman. His theory and composition teachers at Queen’s included Clifford Crawley, Graham George, Bruce Pennycook, F.R.C. Clarke and Istvan Anhalt.

Newspaper Career

After graduation, Barber remained in Kingston, working part-time at a local independent bookstore while pursuing work as a freelance writer. During his time in Kingston, he was also active as a soloist and choral singer with the choir of Chalmers United Church, the Pro Arte Singers, Melos and others. These groups performed several of his compositions during this time.

He began writing freelance concert and book reviews and other work for the Kingston Whig-Standard in 1980. In 1981, the Whig hired him full-time as a copy editor. Over the next 13 years, he served in various roles, including night copy editor, region editor, assistant and acting city editor, entertainment writer, music/theatre critic and entertainment editor. In 1986, the National Newspaper Awards gave him a Citation of Merit for Critical Writing.

Barber briefly left journalism in 1994, when the Whig-Standard was sold to Hollinger Inc., and moved to Westport, Ontario, Canada. From 1992 to 1998, he and his then-wife (they were divorced in 2000) owned and operated a small bookstore/café in Westport, in the Rideau Lakes cottage country north of Kingston.

Barber returned to newspaper journalism in 1997 at Toronto's Globe and Mail, initially part-time as a copy editor for its Report on Business and then full-time as editor of its television magazine, Broadcast Week. He left the Globe and Mail in 1999 and, after a short period of freelancing, joined the National Post and Financial Post as a copy editor, initially part-time and later full-time. After restructuring, the National Post and Financial Post became part of the larger Postmedia newspaper chain.

From 2012 to 2022, Barber was assistant (and sometimes acting) editor of Arts & Life for the entire Postmedia chain of about 40 newspapers. He retired from this position in March 2022 to pursue his other writing and musical interests.

As Author

Barber began writing his first book (which later became Bach, Beethoven and the Boys) while still at Queen’s University, studying music history. But his first published book was A Musician’s Dictionary (later retitled Accidentals on Purpose). After several publishers rejected it, Barber took out a small bank loan, hired a printer and published a small print run himself, selling the book on consignment in local bookstores. This initial success attracted a small Toronto publisher (Sound and Vision, now defunct), which took on the dictionary and several of Barber’s subsequent books. A legal dispute ended that relationship in 2003.

Since 2005, all of Barber’s books have been republished or newly published by Indent Publishing. Worldwide sales of Barber’s books have surpassed 350,000 copies. Some of Barber’s music books have been translated into Italian, Polish and Chinese. There are even pirated editions in Farsi in Iran.

In 2022, Indent published Barber’s collection of short stories, titled Atonement and other stories. In 2023, Barber wrote his first full-length novel, the murder mystery Hedshot, whose protagonist, Dugan Heywood, is a former newspaper journalist turned church musician. Indent published a second Dugan Heywood mystery, Mugshot, in 2024.

List of Publications

• A Musician’s Dictionary (1983) — Revised and expanded in 2011 as Accidentals on Purpose: A Musician’s Dictionary
• Bach, Beethoven and the Boys: Music History as It Ought to Be Taught (1986) — Revised 35th-anniversary edition, 2021
• When the Fat Lady Sings: Opera History as It Ought to Be Taught (1990)
• If It Ain’t Baroque: More Music History as It Ought to Be Taught (1992) — Revised 30th-anniversary edition, 2022
• Getting a Handel on Messiah (1995) — Revised 30th-anniversary edition (2024)
• Tutus, Tights and Tiptoes: Ballet History as It Ought to Be Taught (2000) — Revised edition, 2023
• The Last Laugh: Essays and Oddities in the News (2000)
• Quotable Alice (2001)
• Quotable Sherlock (2001)
• Quotable Twain (2002)
• The Adventure of the Sunken Parsley and Other Stories of Sherlock Holmes (2011)
• Better Than it Sounds: The Music Lover’s Quotation Book (2013)
• Think Again! by Leo Tolstoy, with annotations and commentary by David W. Barber (2022)
• Atonement and other stories (2022)
• Leacock Laughter (2023)
• Hedshot (2023)
• Mugshot (2024)
• Bach, Beethoven and the Grrrls: Women’s Music History as It Ought to Be Taught (2024)

Awards and Memberships

• Citation of Merit, National Newspaper Awards, 1986
• The Writers Union of Canada
• SOCAN
• Mensa Canada

External links

• Publisher: IndentPublishing.com
• Blog: DavidWBarber.com
• Compositions: SheetMusicPlus.com; SheetMusicDirect.com; ArrangeMe.com
• Who’s Who in Canada: https://canadianwhoswho.ca/search_results.php?keywords=David+William+Barber&onlyByName=1