Barbara Kolb (February 10, 1938 – October 21, 2024) was an American composer and educator, the first woman to win the Rome Prize in musical composition.

Kolb was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on February 10, 1938 (many sources erroneously state her birth year as 1939).

[5] Additionally, she had a teaching career at Rhode Island College and at Eastman School of Music[2] as a visiting professor in composition, as well as an association with The MacDowell Colony.

[5] The piece was premiered at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on June 5, 1985, by the Ensemble intercontemporain conducted by Péter Eötvös.

[11] She received the 1987 Kennedy Center Friedheim Award for it, and it became performed at major venues Amsterdam, Helsinki, Vienna, Montreal and Tokyo.

[5] Kolb composed Voyants, a concerto for piano and chamber orchestra, in 1991, dedicated to the memory of Aaron Copland.

It features sound masses, often in vertical structures through simultaneous rhythmic or melodic units (motifs or figures).