The heart and soul of pianist, Louise Barfield, evolves from the roots of Georgia’s Deep South, the heritage of New York’s ancestry, and the artistic culture of Europe and South America. Her inspirations reflect the enviable influences of such masters of the keyboard as Adele Marcus, Ania Dorfmann, Guido Agosti, and Daniel Ericourt. Maestro Adrian Gnam, Music Director and Conductor of The Macon Symphony Orchestra, describes her as: “...one of America’s finest pianists, possessing a marvelous sound, innate musicality, prodigious technique, and magical stage presence.”

Louise Barfield’s early musical training began at the age of six when she entered the Wesleyan College Conservatory of Music in Macon, Georgia as a student of Gladys Pinkston. After receiving an Artist Diploma from the Conservatory, she was the recipient of the Dimitri Mitropoulos Award for study with concert pianists Ania Dorfmann and David Milliken at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. Later, in New York City, Ms. Barfield was awarded a full scholarship from the Edward Bromberg and The William G. Helis Foundations for study at The Juilliard School with distinguished pianist and pedagogue, Adele Marcus. After hearing Ms. Barfield perform in Carnegie Recital Hall in New York, Ms. Marcus described her as: “...having achieved splendid acclaim for the artistry she brings to her profession...”

Graduating from The Juilliard School with an Artist Diploma and a Master of Music Degree, Ms. Barfield was, for two successive years, the recipient of a Fulbright Grant to the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Italy, where she was a student of Maestro Guido Agosti. During the summers, she participated in the Aspen Music School in Colorado, Tanglewood Institute in Massachusetts, the Ambler Music Festival in Pennsylvania, and the Academia di Chigiana in Siena, Italy.

After returning from Europe, she was honored with an official appointment as Cultural Ambassador and Artist-in-Residence to Brazil, sponsored by the National Association of the Partners of the Americas in Washington, D.C. Her musical career grew to include a deep love for teaching young people, especially at Camp Glen Arden in Tuxedo, North Carolina, where she founded and directed the Performing Arts program. Ms. Barfield is a former faculty member of Marymount International School in Rome, Italy, Wesleyan College, and Mercer University in Macon, Georgia and was Artist-in-Residence at Christ School in Asheville, North Carolina. In addition to her performing career, she continues today to guide talented pianists through intense technical development and musical awareness.

Listed in the World’s Who’s Who of Women, Ms. Barfield has been featured in magazines such as Georgia Journal, Macon Magazine, Audio Journal and, more recently, Southern Living (June 2005). She was also featured as piano soloist with the Macon Symphony Orchestra in an oil painting by Catharine Burns Liles commissioned by Southern Bell for the cover of the 1988-89 Macon phone book.

Among her many award-winning students, prominent rock musician Chuck Leavell, pianist for The Rolling Stones, says, “When she sat down at my piano, I nearly fell over backwards. She is an immaculate player. No
doubt about it, she had a profound influence in my musical life.”

Few musicians are called on to meet the challenge facing Louise Barfield one day when she read in a Rome, Italy newspaper that she was guest artist on the prestigious Castel Saint Angelo Concert Series in no less than two hours. Stunned by a director’s scheduling error, she performed to an oblivious full house and a standing ovation.

She rose to another challenge in 1997 when returning home on the interstate from a concert she had performed in Georgia. Struck from behind by a tractor-trailer truck, she suffered numerous spinal injuries resulting in three surgeries, partial paralysis and atrophy of her right hand, over three years of physical therapy, and a threatening end to a performing career. During five years of silence, her inner struggle for musical expression and spiritual insight continued to thrive, and Ms. Barfield’s inexhaustible love and dedication led her back to the stage where she belongs.

Ms. Barfield is the founder and director of Little Carnegie of the South which opened in 2002 in Macon, Georgia, and features a concert hall and art gallery. Little Carnegie of the South includes the Carnegie Cafe for pre-teens and teens, Camp Carnegie for children, and Carnegie Out Back, an outdoor stage for Jazz, Rock, Folk and Bluegrass concerts. Little Carnegie of the South also presents an annual Merit Award for outstanding young musicians and artists.

Louise Barfield is the mother of two children, Clisby and Logan White.