Barett Hoover

Barett Hoover is a versatile arts administrator with more than twenty years of experience leading performing arts organizations across opera, chamber music, presenting, and higher education. He currently serves as Director of Performing Arts at Menlo College in Atherton, California, where he built a new multidisciplinary program from the ground up. Previously, he was Executive Director of the Bay Philharmonic and General Manager of Chamber Music Hawai‘i, where he launched a crossover concert series at Blue Note Hawai‘i that connected chamber music with jazz, Hawaiian music, and local cultural traditions. His earlier career includes eleven years at Hawai‘i Opera Theatre, rising to Director of Artistic Administration, and a tenure as Theatre Manager at Leeward Community College. Across these roles, his work has consistently centered the conviction that music should meet people where they are — embedded in the actual landscape and history of a community rather than floating above it.

Barett grew up in Maryland with longstanding ties to the Potomac Valley, and the hills around Harpers Ferry have held a special place in his memory since family camping trips and hikes on the Appalachian Trail in his youth. A trained jazz saxophonist with a lifelong personal practice, he began his artistic career as a performer in the Baltimore area before earning a Bachelor of Science in Audio Recording from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. His recordings as an audio engineer have been heard on the Centaur and Summit record labels and in National Public Radio broadcasts, and he is an award-winning sound designer recognized for innovative work in live theater. He holds an MBA from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Shidler College of Business.