Barry Barrios is the Director of Music and Worship Arts at First United Methodist Church, Katy, Texas, since September of 1990. He has degrees from Lon Morris College, Jacksonville, Texas, and Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas. Recently he became certified as a Certified Lay Servant in the United Methodist Church and is currently taking steps to become a Certified Lay Minister.
Along with a lengthy career in church music, Barry has also been involved in the performing arts as a singer, actor, and dancer (more of a mover) with Houston’s Theatre Under the Stars for nine seasons, ten seasons with HG0’s Opera to Go, four seasons with Six Flags Show Productions, and a show or two with Houston Stages Theatre, and Strand Street Theatre in Galveston.
Barry was honored to sing bass/baritone with The Houston Chamber Choir for three seasons, and Cantare’ Houston for nine seasons, and is privileged to travel abroad since 1994 with the Houston area Festival Touring Choir singing in grand places all over Europe and beyond where he currently serves as tour co-director. (Talk to him about Romania and Bulgaria set for September 2026).
A former 2013/2014 Dean of Texas Conference Choir Clinic (serving on the board of directors since 1996) Mr. Barrios has served as an officer for Houston Chapter of Choristers Guild, served on the Texas Annual Conference Choir Worship Team for ten years, and has been a member of the Fellowship of United Methodists in Music and Worship Arts since 1998 (now the Fellowship of Worship Artists), serving as an officer on the local level for many of those years.
Barry’s first experience with choir camp was the summer of 1974, where he sang in the high school choir as a high school freshman, clearly remembering rehearsing in Crafts Building #5! After several years away from choir camp, he came back in 1992, and has been involved ever since, recently as the director of the high school camp for several years, clinician for the high school choir, the co-host of the Variety Show for over 20 years, and currently the director of the Young Adult Choir for a 2nd year!!