Barbara Barthelmes was born in Kingswalden/Hertfordshire (GB) in 1957. She studied musicology, art history and philosophy in Würzburg and Berlin. She lectured at the Hochschule der Kuenste in Berlin and at the University of Bielefeld, was co-editor of the journal "Musica" and since 1991 has been a member of the editorial board of the music journal "Positionen". From 1995-1998 she was a member of the executive committee of the Institut fur Neue Musik and Musikerziehung Darmstadt. She received her M.A. in musicology at the Technische Universität in Berlin with work about the aesthetic principle of collage in music. Her dissertation (Ph.D.) at the Technische Universitäat in Berlin on the musical and theoretical oeuvre of Ivan Wyschnegradsky, a Russian composer in the aesthetic context of A. Scriabin. As musicologist, she has worked in the areas of Russian symbolist music, microtone music, and French "spectral" music and is specialized in contemporary music, sound art (sound installation art and music performance art), music and new media (music and videoclip, new musical instruments). Her current research focuses on the notions of nature in the music of the early 20th century, on theories of musical hermeneutics and experimental music theatre. At the moment she is going to work at the University of Halle.