Guitar Lessons, Music Theory Lessons

Barbie Matthews holds Master’s Degree from Yale University and a Bachelor’s Degree from New England Conservatory of Music in Classical Guitar Performance with Academic Honors, with a Minor in Music Theory. Her primary guitar instructors were Eliot Fisk, Jérôme Mouffe, and Benjamin Verdery.

Barbie performed as a soloist for Yale School of Music's 2023 Commencement Concert, Yale's New Music New Haven's 2022 Concert Series, Boston Public Library's 2020 Never Too Late series, and the 2018 Jason and Alicia Moran New England Conservatory Jazz Fellowship Concert. Barbie is a three-time recipient of the NEC Community Solo Performance Fellowship Award, where as a fellow, she played numerous solo performances throughout Boston. Passionate about Jazz studies, Barbie has played in NEC Jazz ensembles, and she studied Jazz guitar with esteemed guitarist Brad Shepik.

Actively engaged in Classical Guitar pedagogy and education, Barbie was a private instructor for Yale University's Secondary Lessons Program from 2021-2023. She has held a private guitar studio since 2018, teaching a variety of genres. Passionate about Music Theory education, Barbie taught an undergraduate Keyboard Harmony course at the New England Conservatory of Music, teaching the fundamentals of voice leading, harmony, counterpoint, and figured bass realization. As a Teaching Assistant, she led graduate and undergraduate Music Theory classes in tonal and post-tonal practice at the New England Conservatory of Music and at Yale School of Music.

Passionate about new music, Matthews’ minor thesis explored how Witold Maliszewski’s unique teaching of formal analysis relating to Beethoven’s 35 piano sonatas informed the formal structure of Witold Roman Lutosławski’s Chain 1. Later developing an interest in American Experimentalism, Matthews dedicated her graduate recital at Yale to American Experimentalist works from the 20th and 21st centuries, featuring works by Elliott Carter and Ingram Marshall, and her original transcription for electric guitar and loop pedal of Julius Eastman’s chamber piece, Femenine. Matthews strives to engage with material that represents a broad range of musical traditions and styles and to communicate and synthesize the relationship between Music Theory and Performance Practice.