I had the pleasure of writing the following citation for Thurman Barker’s 2022 Bardian award, including this excerpt:

In the morning, from Thurman Barker’s office, a sustained sound would emanate that brought the listener to consider the word “hush,” a homophone. He would be there, practicing the snare drum not with brushes but with sticks, precision, and mastery. Listening for a homophone would acknowledge an oft-forgotten African diasporic legacy of percussive sounds as surrogates for words, though the practice has been veiled in the United States. In light of this, Barker’s artful assertion remains a radical act, hundreds of years after the 1740 South Carolina Slave Code and similar legislation outlawed enslaved peoples’ possession of drums; twentieth-century uses of the snare drum quietly conjured older associations with militancy in the worlds of art and music. Ever aware of choices, wise, and generous, Barker—percussionist, improvising composer, and beloved professor—has been a champion for the “freedom principles” of experimentalism that invite high regard for the dignity of creative musicians.