MA Top 30 Professional: James Barry

Vice President of Artistic Planning and Operations
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra

James Barry has faced two once-in-a-lifetime challenges during his more than 20 years as a classical music administrator.

Before joining the Rochester Philharmonic in 2021, he spent 13 years with the League of American Orchestras. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, he was senior manager of artistic and learning programs. Barry quickly organized online sessions for League members, connecting large and small orchestras to brainstorm ways to stay afloat over the many months of shutdown. He also landed a $25,000 grant that the League parceled out to musicians struggling to establish a digital presence.

“That was probably one of the most impactful things I did, just listening,” he says. “A lot of people reached out to me. A grant could be a small honorarium, $250, to buy a piece of equipment or whatever. We were all just listening closely and responding where we could.” The second challenge was literally cosmic. The orchestra celebrated its centennial season in 2023-24, and in April 2024 Rochester was in the path of the total solar eclipse. The city was expecting 500,000 visitors for the Big Event. On April 7, backed by a giant video screen and laser lights, the Philharmonic shared the stage of Rochester’s 7,400-seat Blue Cross Arena with local artists, among them a madrigal chorus, gospel choir, actors, combat artists, R&B singers, and aerialists. The eclipse-themed musical extravaganza drew a sold-out house with lines stretching around the arena.

“It was one of the craziest things I’ve ever done professionally,” says Barry. “We dreamed way big, bigger than we ever had.” 

The orchestra is also thinking big with its new Voices of Today project, a five-year initiative that includes recordings, commissioning new music, and story-telling funded by a $2 million donation, the largest in the orchestra’s history. It’s a daring project, so Barry is planning carefully. 

“I kind of know that if we go a little bit too modernist, we’re going to lose our audience,” he says. “But so long as a piece can move you, as long as it has melody and it has harmony, people have responded very favorably.”