Barnard hired as museum director

Daniel R. Barnard, the new executive director of Marty Stuart’s Congress of Country Music, says he is ready to get the show started,

Marty Stuart announced Barnard’s hiring earlier this month. Barnard is already on the job as he watches the renovation of the Ellis Theater come together.

The Ellis Theater is Phase I of the $30 million project that is expected to be finished in September. There are other phases as an educational component is developed and then a museum area constructed to display Stuart’s 20,000-piece collection of country music memorabilia.

Located on the southeastern corner of Byrd Avenue and Main Street, when all phases are completed, there will also be classrooms, a community hall, event space and a rooftop performance venue creating a 50,000-square-foot campus.

“What makes all of this possible is Marty,” said Barnard. “If it didn’t have Marty’s name, it would a tough sale. 

With his name and with the strength of the collection, we should be able to fundraise nationally, not just locally.”

Barnard talked about how Stuart’s the one-of-a-kind collection of country music memorabilia should be displayed once the museum area is complete.

“The collection is unbelievable,” Barnard said. “Marty really saw a glaring need to preserve these things. This is the largest collection of country music memorabilia in the world.

“When people come and walk through, they can’t just see the different items. We  have to help them understand the story behind the items. It is going to be our task to tell that story well.”

He used the “World of Marty Stuart” part of the collection that is on exhibit at the Two Museums in Jackson as an example.

“They did a good job in placing the artifacts in groups that make sense together,” said Barnard. “The use of video and audio of Marty talking about his recollections of each item is well done. The use of manikins to display the costumes  instead of just hanging there, makes a big difference in how you perceive those outfits. We have to be very careful in how we exhibit these artifacts so people can learn about their stories.”

Barnard calls Wichita, Texas, his hometown. His background is 100 percent music. He got his bachelor of music degree from West Texas State. He earned his master’s degree at Northern Colorado University. He then started his doctorate degree work at North Texas University and completed it at the University of Kansas.

“I was a music professor and a choral conductor for almost 17 years,” Barnard said. “Then in 1999, I took a job at Penn State University and it was a life changing experience.”

Part of his job was to run a Chamber Music Series. He had a budget of $50,000 and he started applying for grants to increase the programming.

“I fell in love with that business,” Barnard said. “I enjoyed choosing the artist and making sure how the crowd was going to respond to the experience. To me, it is the same skill as a composer, thinking about how the audience is going to react.”

During a period between working on his degrees, Barnard worked as an auditor for a property management company.

“When I was trying to get into the presenting business, I found people were reluctant to hire a purely artsy person because they weren’t sure he can balance a check book,” Barnard said. “I know numbers and I can balance a check book. I ran budgets in Texas, Florida and at the Riley Center.

He has worked his way up in the presenting business. He was director of The Arts Center at the University of Texas-Brownsville.

“I have experience in opening new halls,” Barnard said.  “That was a brand new hall, a $26 million project.”

His next stop was Broward College in Florida where he was Associate Dean of Cultural Affairs and director of the Bailey Hall.

He left in 2019 to become the executive director of the Riley Center in Meridian where he stayed until 2021. Like many places at the time, the COVID-19 pandemic affected his numbers at the Riley Center.

“I was terminated,” Barnard said. “Our concert numbers stayed the same but the conferences were down and that was a bjg part of the budget.”

Around September of last year, he began the application process to become the executive director of the Congress of Country Music.

“The interview process was long,” Barnard said. “It started in the fall. There was a phone interview and then a zoom interview. Then there was an in-person interview.

“Then I drove to Nashville to meet with Marty. It was a several step process. I think the board is comfortable with me because I was able to meet with many of them personally. It turned out to be a good thing,” Barnard said.

Barnard is getting his feet on the ground with his new position. He said he will be traveling to Nashville to meet with Stuart in the coming weeks and will begin planning for the grand opening of the Ellis.