Download Rhett Barnwell has undertaken a varied career as a classical and

Rhett Barnwell has undertaken a varied career as a classical and Celtic harpist, organist,
composer, conductor, cellist, and French horn player. As a harpist, he has concentrated on
music for healing, sacred and meditative purposes, and has played for numerous events in
churches, hospices, nursing homes and hospitals. He has also published a number of
compositions and arrangements for the harp through Seraphim Music, which are distributed
in the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. He has given concerts throughout the U.S., and
has performed in Venice, Rome and Florence, Italy and at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival with
soprano Claire Teuber. He also recently completed a concert tour of Ireland with soprano
Victoria Lawson. He has been a presenter and performer at the Southeastern Harp
Conference, Somerset Folk Harp Festival, Harp Journeys, Beginning in the Middle,
HarpFeste and others. He organized the 2007, 2009 and 2011 Liturgical Harp Conferences
which drew harpists from all over the country. He has served on the Board of Trustees of
the Historical Harp Society, was the CD Review Editor for the Folk Harp Journal and
managed the Atlanta Harp Center for four years. He was recently featured in USA Today in
collaboration with award winning author Andrea Kay.
His career as a French horn player has included performances with a number of orchestras
in the U. S. and abroad, including two seasons as Principal Horn with the Spoleto Festival
Orchestra in Charleston and Italy, the AIMS Symphony Orchestra of Graz, Austria,
Orquesta Sinfonica de Tenerife, Spain, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra and
Chorus of St. Louis, South Carolina Philharmonic, Charleston Symphony and others. He has
been heard in performances broadcast on ORF, Austrian Radio, Radiotelevisione Italiana,
and National Public Radio. He has been on the music faculties of Columbia College and
Agnes Scott College.
Mr. Barnwell earned a Master of Music degree in French horn performance from Saint Louis
Conservatory and pursued Doctoral study in organ and choral conducting at the University
of Georgia. He has also studied Gregorian chant at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music
in Rome, Italy, the Abbey of St. Pierre, Solesmes, France, and Westminster Choir College.
His harp teachers have included Mary Brigid Roman, Sunita Staneslow, Monica Hargrave,
Ellen Foster and Kelly Brzozowski.
He has served as Director of Music for a number of Catholic, Episcopal and Methodist
churches in the Southeast. He is currently Director of Music and Worship Arts at Embry
Hills United Methodist Church in Atlanta, GA.