Cyrilla P. Barr, professor emerita at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., died earlier this year in La Crosse, Wisconsin. She was 91 years old.
Dr. Barr was a native of Carroll, Iowa. She held a bachelor’s degree in music education from what is now Viterbo University in La Crosse. She went on to earn a master of music degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. at the Catholic University of America.
Professor Barr taught at Viterbo from 1957 to 1961 and from 1965 to 1974. Between these two tenures on the Viterbo faculty, Dr. Barr was a Fulbright scholar in Italy. She joined the faculty at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art at the Catholic University of America in 1976. She taught there for 23 years before her retirement in 1999.
Professor Barr lectured widely in the U.S. and Europe on aspects of Italian medieval studies, women’s studies, and twentieth-century music patronage. She was a member of the American Musicological Society, the College Music Society, and the Sonneck Society.