Concerts

L’Accordéoniste, Colours of Music Festival, Barrie

Marilyn Reesor, The Barrie Examiner, September 29, 2009
"An entranced and captivated crowd was transported to the impassioned streets of war-time Europe on Sunday afternoon at Central United Church in Barrie. Led through a series of charming, cabaret-style musical vignettes by the ensemble known as L'Accordeoniste, the audience was touched by the despair of a Germany betrayed by Hitler and both the comedy and desolation of love sought and love lost in Italy and France. Soulful and heart-wrenching or quirky and heart-warming, the music was at all times poignant...each performer drawing on vast improvisational skills and immense knowledge of era and style...This was a world-class performance. Bravo."

L’Accordéoniste CD Launch, Toronto

John Terauds, Sound Mind, Toronto Star blog, July 16, 2009
"The group's vocalist is classical mezzo Kimberly Barber, who veers deftly from throaty pleas to full operatic flight, giving each song the right amount of dramatic heft...The final song in the first set was one of Piaf's signature songs, the one that gives the album its title. Hearing the accordion live as Barber sang, one could really begin to understand the seductive power of its master as the singer loses herself in its song."
for full review see Sound Mind--Toronto Star music blog

The Dream of Gerontius, Elora Festival

John Terauds, Toronto Star, July 16, 2007
"Festival artistic director Noel Edison, who conducted, had invited a stellar, all-Canadian vocal cast...mezzo-soprano Kimberly Barber [was] the very embodiment of the guiding angel-"

Kelly Waterhouse, Fergus-Elora News Express, July 18, 2007
"Kimberly Barber, the beautiful mezzo-soprano, gave wings to Elgar's Angel, with her elegant grace"

Daniel Ariaratnam, K-W Record, July 16, 2007
"Mezzo-soprano Kimberly Barber gave an outstanding performance as the angel. Although the Wilfrid Laurier University faculty member filled the hall with her operatic quality voice, her performance stood out for capturing the subtle nuances and phrasings of the intimate moments, which were often incredibly moving and transcendental."

Charlotte, Werther, Jules Massenet, Vancouver Opera

Lloyd Dyyk, Vancouver Sun, October 16, 2006
"Mezzo Kimberly Barber was wonderful as Charlotte and grew better yet as the opera proceeded. She had a telling way of giving just the right shading to crucial works and was very affecting in her long passage where she realizes her feelings for Werther."

Christopher Darling, Opera Canada, January-February 2007
"Kimberly Barber carried Charlotte's elegance and contained suffering well. She showed genuine concern for Werther in that gorgeous first act duet, while her voice rang out strongly during a highly charged Letter Scene. Her reunion with Werther at the end of the evening palpably rekindled memories of love lost."

"Entrückung", String Quartet op. 10, no.2, Arnold Schoenberg, with Penderecki String Quartet, Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, ON

Daniel Ariaratnam, K-W Record, October 17, 2005
"The movement also includes a soprano part with an ethereal text by Stefan George, performed exquisitely by mezzo-soprano Kimberly Barber."

The Garden of the Heart, R. Murray Schafer, Open Ears Festival

Harry Currie, K-W Record, April 27, 2005
"Barber's beautiful voice floated above the accompaniment, entreating, pleading, reminiscing, every note pure and clear, pitch-perfect, no matter the sometimes difficult melodic line. The Schafer with Barber was without doubt the high point of this program."

Rinaldo, Rinaldo, G.F. Handel, Opera in Concert, Toronto

Tamara Bernstein, National Post, March 26, 2004
"The luminous mezzo-soprano Kimberly Barber likewise needed no costume to transform herself into the shining knight Rinaldo. Yes, strictly speaking she uses more vibrato thank is stylistically appropriate. But Barber plumbed the opera's moment of deepest humanity in a heart-wrenching performance of the famous aria 'Cara sposa'...her voice alive with infinite tenderness and nobility, her face ravaged by grief."

Geoff Chapman, Toronto Star, April 4, 2004
"The singing was of a particularly high level, artists quickly illuminating character-Barber's title role interpretation was strong and absorbing, particularly refined in the lower registers, hypnotically moving in the famed aria 'Cara sposa'-"

Wayne Gooding, Opera Canada, Summer 2004
"The female leads were particularly effective, with mezzo Kimberly Barber, in the title role, showing her mastery of the musical idiom right from the opening number. Rinaldo started to win a surer place in the contemporary repertoire when Marilyn Horne, a pioneer in this music, made the role's centerpiece arias the cornerstones of a recital disc. Barber's performance was very much cut from the same fine cloth. Her account of the lament, 'Cara sposa', was achingly languid and beautiful; her martial music was thrilling the precision of its execution."

Recital with Frederica von Stade and Steven Blier, Waterloo, ON

Harry Currie, K-W Record, November 20, 2003
"The draw was von Stade, of course, the world's reigning mezzo, proving the she is at the peak of her vocal powers and career, but WLU's Barber, performing with her friend and idol, displayed a voice with an uncanny resemblance to that of her mentor...so much so that she might very well be considered the heir apparent-some of the audience said they closed their eyes during these trade-offs and it sounded as if only one voice was singing the entire piece...high praise, indeed, for Barber-the two divas didn't just sing superbly, they acted, gestured, moved, used facial expressions and felt every nuance of the songs they were singing, conveying this to the audience and capturing every rapt listener with their musical storytelling."

Tamara Bernstein, National Post, November 20, 2003
"I got to know Barber through her touching portrayals of Handel heroes, whom she invests with vulnerability as well as nobility. So I am always floored by her equally brilliant gift for 20th century music, and the ease with which she slips into the skin, say, of a New Jersey gangster's daughter. Her performance of 'Hosing the Furniture', with its volcanic rage simmering just beneath the comic surface, was a tour de force. But her most moving moment was the weightiest piece on the program: Sibelius's compact, verbally understated sage of young love and betrayal, 'Flickan kom ifran sin älsklings möte'. Barber's voice also soared thrillingly in the handful of duets on the program-one felt truly blessed to be, if only for a few hours, a Babe in Mezzoland."

A Few Words about Chekhov, Dominick Argento, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra

Larry Fuchsberg, St. Paul Star Tribune, March 24, 2003
"The premiere of the new edition was the high point of Saturday's concert by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra-Argento's idiosyncratic writing was eloquently realized by Swedish baritone Hakan Hagegard (as Chekhov) and Canadian mezzo-soprano Kimberly Barber (as Knipper)."

Joan Oliver Goldsmith, St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 24, 2003
"What a shining night. A radiant performance of Beethoven's 6th and a luminous tale of romantic marriage-Argento's song cycle 'A Few Words about Chekhov' illuminates the short marriage of playwright Anton Chekhov and actress Olga Knipper during the last six years of Chekhov's life-Kimberly Barber's rich mezzo-soprano filled Olga with the passion of a leading lady. Hagegard and Barber sang intricate rhythms and pitches that skipped all over the staff as if they were the simplest of tunes."

Messiah, G.F. Handel, K-W Philharmonic Choir, KWSO

Colleen Johnston, K-W Record, December 16, 2002
"Barber's sound is cultured, yet dramatic. She lingers on cadences, so you hear the music with your entire physical and emotional being."

Popera, Opera Ontario

Harry Currie, K-W Record, December 2, 2002
"The four soloists-simply could not be improved on-Barber continued with 'Una voce poco fa', displaying wonderful range and control as she portrayed the coquette-Barber had fun as Carmen the temptress in a Bizet aria-but the two flower duets were studies in perfection, one from Madama Butterfly and the other from Lakme. Probably the best known double-soprano duet in the world because of its use in commercials, the duet from Lakme might well have come off sounding a bit tired, but Whalen and Barber breathed fresh life into the lovely music, and their superb interpretation could not have been bettered by any two sopranos on the planet."

Recital, Waterloo, ON

Colleen Johnston, Kitchener-Waterloo Record, June 8, 2002
"Having perfected her vocal and expressive technique to the pinnacle of virtuosity, it's no wonder Barber has been invited to sing on the major international stages-Barber's is a precisely honed voice, which can easily move listeners to laughter or tears. It's plummy, ripe, sincere and whether very soft or belted out, always honest. Barber has loads of charm added on to her other attributes. Her diction in English, French, German, Swedish, Spanish or Italian, is impeccable. Her ability to conjure intelligently crafted and believable scenes from a short song, such as Schubert's heart-wrenching 'Du liebst mich nicht', and lavish such understated sweet sadness in the same composer's 'Im Frühling' is astonishing."

COC Orchestra, In Performance Series

William Littler, Toronto Star, February 28, 2001
"Vocal honours fell to outstanding members of the younger generation of Canadian singers. Their successful appearance together in the Canadian Opera Company's 1999 production of Handel's Xerxes made two such singers, soprano Kathleen Brett and mezzo-soprano Kimberly Barber, logical candidates for paired exposure, both blessed with near-ideal voices for Mozart-both singers produced firm, clear tones, phrased expressively and sang for emotional meaning-"

L'Heure espagnole with London Symphony Orchestra

Robert Cowan, The Independent, June 14, 1997
"Frederica von Stade had been scheduled to sing Concepción but was indisposed; in her absence, the Canadian mezzo Kimberly Barber proved a most alluring deputy, coy, beguiling, bitchy, full of fun and vocally distinctive."

Brahms and Britten Liederabend with Staatstheater Wiesbaden

Daniela Koreimann, Wiesbadener Kurier, May 26, 1997
"Kimberly Barber was able, with great vocal expressiveness and flexibility, to bring out the dark and subconsciously lurking moments in Britten's A Charm of Lullabies. The opera singer in Kimberly Barber is noticeable: the ability to quickly slip into a role, imbuing each character of a song with unfailing sensitivity for text content and compositional refinement, all were played out to perfection. Whether she played the desperate mother in Sephestia's Lullaby, the old scarecrow in Bird Scarer's Song or the nightclub singer in the jazz-inspired Cabaret Songs - the consistent flexibility and brilliantly colored intensity of her interpretation and the richly-nuanced spectrum of her mezzo-soprano fascinate."

New York Festival of Song

Paul Griffiths, New York Times, January 17, 1997
"Kimberly Barber, mezzo-soprano, was touching, pure and lovely in (...) Mr. Bolcom's Casino Paradise."