As we celebrate our history and look ahead to opening our new facility, we are featuring the many long-time Board and Corporation members who have helped us get to where we are today.

BARBARA: I had a folk music quartet in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade in my little town growing up. It was the early days of folk music. We were “Four gals and a guitar”—I was the guitar. I began taking lessons in 3rd grade. And I could sing. I had a good voice, and I had operatic training through high school, and decided then what a hard path it was. I didn’t pursue music in college, and then after college, I married, worked, and had children. They were never that interested in music, but I used to sing all the time. So that’s what led me back to the banjo when I became board president at CMCB. I thought, you know, I’ve got to show them that I have some musical chops. 

I think I started banjo lessons at CMCB in 2008. In 2010, as the honoree at the Kleshinski Luncheon, I was supposed to give a speech. And I didn’t tell anybody until the day before that I wasn’t going to just talk, that I was going to sing and play banjo. I wanted to show what it was like to be an adult student! And everyone was surprised. 

ZACH: How did you eventually land in Boston?

BARBARA: I went to Washington University in St. Louis, and I met my husband, David, on the first day of freshman year when we were waiting in line to register. David grew up in Boston, and he moved back there to join his family’s business. 

I was an urban studies major and worked for the Metropolitan Area Planning Council when I first came to Boston. Then I applied to planning school, and I did a joint program at the Harvard School of Education and the Planning School. I worked for the Education Collaborative (“EdCo”) for a couple of years.  And then I started my family.

When I worked for EdCo, it was during the desegregation of the Boston Schools. One of the women I worked for at EdCo was a co-founder of Metco. Her name was Betty Johnson. She worked with Jean McGuire, Ruth Batson, Ellen Jackson, the Snowdens—all the early Black leaders in Boston. I knew almost every person commemorated around the Embrace statue of Martin Luther King on Boston Common. 

At EdCo, I worked for Project Space, an alternative high school program for students who were not succeeding in the Boston Public School setting. Our students would instead go to school in a classroom on-site at a local company and get work experience in the afternoon. We had six different sites sponsored by Liberty Mutual, Honeywell, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other companies in Boston that supported the program. 

ZACH: That’s incredible. It sounds a lot like our Youth Employment Program here at CMCB. Do you have other favorite memories?

BARBARA: I have many memories of working with incredible women at EdCo.  Another favorite memory I remember is getting to know Henry Hampton, the creator and producer of Eyes on the Prize. When I was Board Chair at Boston Center for Adult Education, Henry and our Executive Director were very good friends. They used to brainstorm with me about how to raise money for his documentaries or the Museum of African American History.  When we met for lunch, I learned that he’d also attended Washington University and was from St. Louis. I had a contact at Washington U, and I told her, “You need to get his archives-you need to fund him!”  And they did. And I think everything is there now.

ZACH: So, how did you get involved at CMCB? 

BARBARA: I had a friend who was the board president here, Eric Wodlinger. Our kids were in kindergarten together. And I knew his wife, Hillary; we worked on school events together. We decided to have a joint fundraiser between CMCB and Boston Center for Adult Education, and that’s when I got to know the Music Center. It’s how I met David Lapin and Mary Carney for the first time. It was fun, and it brought me here, first as a Corporation member, and later to the Board. The first event we did was when I met Ginger Lawrence, who was an early mentor. It was a very smart move to have a pro with a newbie. She was always a good friend. 

ZACH: And so how did you flourish from there into becoming board president? 

BARBARA: Well, I didn’t want to (laughs). I had been a board president. And, you know, when you’re a board president, you’re working every day. And if you’re not working physically every day, mentally you are working every day. John Kleshinski had been president, and he was fabulous, and we would have liked him to be president forever. He just was so… he had everything. And as you know, he died suddenly. I had said that I would be the vice president, but with the understanding that I would never become president. And then CMCB needed a President. 

At the first board meeting after he passed, I brought my pictures from the fifth grade, of Four Gals and a Guitar. And I said, you may not think of me as a musician, but I’m going to show you that I am. And I passed around my fifth-grade photos. And we were off. 

Toward the end of my tenure was when the economy fell apart in 2008. It was difficult; we lost a fair amount of the endowment, but we were celebrating our 100th anniversary, so it was my idea to do 100 concerts in our 100th year. CMCB does at least that many concerts each year anyway!

ZACH: There’s been this big evolution with CMCB moving from thinking about itself more as a best-kept secret to being very prominent. 

BARBARA: Well, it’s not a secret anymore. 

ZACH: What has it been like to be part of that evolution and help champion that evolution? 

BARBARA: Well, it’s so interesting to be part of other organizations now. At events or dinners, everybody wants to know about it (CMCB). The new building’s going to be fabulous. The whole area is going to be an art center. 

ZACH:  You could be involved in so many places across the city, right? I’m sure any nonprofit would love to have your time and talent, and expertise. Why CMCB after all these years? 

BARBARA: I was hooked early on, just coming into the sounds at 34 Warren Ave on a Saturday morning. I love music. I considered myself a musician for a long time, and then I wasn’t, and it brought me back. And I felt that I made a difference.

I was struck by the first fundraiser after COVID: after so many lean years and so much wanting around at home. Going to that fundraiser and seeing all those paddles in the air for $10,000, $25,000… and I thought, you know, we can do this. So that was a real eye-opener for me. It was always great and I felt positive about what I was doing, making a difference, but what we’re doing now is even larger.