Gregory Barnett is the author of Bolognese Instrumental Music, 1660-1710: Spiritual Comfort, Courtly Delight, and Commercial Triumph, published by Ashgate Press. He has also published articles in the Journal of the American Musicological Society, Early Music, The Journal of Musicology, the Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, Theoria, Oxford Bibliographies Online, the Basler Jahrbuch für Historische Musikpraxis, Quaderni della Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, and in several volumes of conference proceedings of the Antiquae Musicae Italicae Studiosi—Como. He is a contributor to The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen, The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music, eds. John Butt and Tim Carter, Geminiani Studies, ed. Christopher Hogwood (Ut Orpheus Edizioni), Regole Armoniche (1775) by Vincenzo Manfredini, ed. Massimiliano Sala (Brepols), and The Early Italian Keyboard Sonata, ed. Rohan Horace Stewart-MacDonald (Brepols).

In his research, Dr. Barnett has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Bellagio Center of the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Program, and the American Musicological Society. His research interests include the history of modal theory, Baroque-era instrumental music and instruments, and the music of Handel. Before coming to Rice University, he held positions at the University of Iowa and the University of Michigan. He has taught early opera, American music, Baroque music, and seminars on 17th- and 18th-century performance practice, the history of music theory, and J. S. Bach. Along with Dr. Peter Loewen, Dr. Barnett is co-director of the Shepherd School Collegium Musicum.