Concerts

Monday, December 15, 2025
12 PM

Dr. Yewon Lee is a frequently sought-after conductor and collaborative pianist on the operatic and concert stage. Prior to relocating to San Diego, Lee was Assistant Music Director of Opera at Baldwin Wallace University and Adjunct Professor at Kent State University. In the operatic world, she coached at Baldwin Wallace Opera Theater, National Opera Center, Aspen Opera Theater Center, and International Vocal Arts Institute in Israel, France, Italy, and Japan. Born in South Korea, Hyun-Jeong Ahn is an accomplished soloist and chamber musician with appearances across the United States, France, Germany, Czech, Spain, and Korea. Ahn was invited to give a solo and chamber recitals at venues such as Carnegie Weill Recital Hall (New York), Brahms House (Baden-Baden, Germany), Palffy Palace (Prague, Czech), Leith Symington Griswold Hall, Goodwin Hall, Friedberg Hall in Maryland, Studzinski Recital Hall in Maine, and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Smith Recital Hall, Smith Memorial Room in Illinois, Seongnam Arts Center, Ceramic Palace Hall, Youngsan Art Center, Ewon Art Hall in Seoul.

Monday, December 22, 2025
12 PM

Barry Davis Salwen is an international concert pianist giving performances and master classes in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Asia. He gave two weeks of master classes at the Shanghai Conservatory in China, among many other places. As the recipient of a prestigious Fulbright Scholars Grant, he gave a semester's seminar at the Music Academy in Freiburg, Germany, one of the leading music institutions in the country.

Monday, December 29, 2025
12 PM

Comprised of Anna Grigorian and Natasha Gubenko, the award winning Grigorian Gubenko Piano Duo was formed in 2016. The duo has been featured numerous times at the MTAC conventions and continues to perform extensively at various professional and community functions. Both pianists lead busy piano teaching careers, conduct masterclasses, serve as adjudicators, and have leadership positions in the state and national professional music teachers associations.

Monday, January 5, 2026
12 PM

Born by the Mediterranean Sea in Italy and raised between the Swiss Alps, Iris Moné is a Swiss-Italian artist with an international flair. She moved to Southern California 10 years ago, developed her songwriting craft and created soulful songs. In 2013, she was a finalist on the first season of The Voice of Switzerland, appeared on many albums, performed at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, the Bitter End in NYC, the Montreux Festival, and at the EXPO Milano.

Thursday, January 8, 2026
7:30 PM

Liebestod—myths of love and death
—World premieres by Alyssa Aska and Franklin Cox
—Music by Chaya Czernowin, Alexandra Gardner, Zosha DiCastri, and Benjamin Britten

January 8, 9 & 10, 2026
7:30 PM

The annual soundON Festival returns! Presented by San Diego New Music and the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, this year’s lineup showcases cutting-edge contemporary music by a global roster of composers, along with music by friends of the festival, such as Juan Campoverde Q.

Friday, January 9, 2026
7:30 PM

Body and Soul—Memory, Contemplation, and Expectation  
—World premiere by Sidney Marquez Boquiren
—Music by Michael Gordon, David Lang, Vicky Ray, and Michael Jarrell

Saturday, January 10, 2026
7:30 PM

Mythologies—searching for and seeing ourselves             
—World premieres by Juan Campoverde Q., Lukas Schulze, and Sidney Marquez Boquiren
—Music by Yu-hui Chang and  Salvatore Sciarrino

Monday, January 12, 2026
12 PM

Band leader and beloved piano player for many years in San Diego, Sue is known as the Queen of Boogie Woogie and always manages to entertain with fun and flair. She has won many San Diego Music Awards, with various bands, and toured the world with the late blues artist Candye Kane, for 8 years. In 2008 her album "Sophisticated Ladies" won the International Blues Challenge in Memphis for Best (unsigned) CD. The City of San Diego named a day after her, also in 2008.

Tuesday, January 20, 2026
7:30 PM

*AT SCRIPPS RESEARCH AUDITORIUM*

The series opens on Tuesday, January 20, at Scripps Research Auditorium, with a local debutby the Hamilton de Holanda Trio. De Holanda, one of Brazil’s most celebrated musicians, is a global ambassador for Brazilian music. Picking up the mandolin at the age of five, he revolutionized the 10-string version of the instrument, blending Brazilian traditions with jazz and other global influences. JazzTimes wrote, “Mandolin virtuoso and composer de Holanda proves the limitless capabilities of the Brazilian bandolim as a solo instrument.” DownBeat called him an “absolute maestro of rhythm and improvisation.”

Tuesday, January 20, 2026—Hamilton de Holanda Trio
Wednesday, January 28, 2026—Paul Cornish Trio
Saturday, February 14, 2026—Anat Cohen Quartetinho*
Wednesday, March 18, 2026—Tord Gustavsen Trio
Monday, March 23, 2026—Immanuel Wilkins Quartet
7:30 PM
*6 & 8:30 PM

*AT THE ATHENAEUM MUSIC & ARTS LIBRARY*

Start the new year with jazz! The Athenaeum is pleased to announce this five-concert series featuring return visits and local debuts by internationally acclaimed and rising-star artists, including performances in the library’s Joan & Irwin Jacobs Music Room (at 1008 Wall Street in La Jolla) and at Scripps Research Auditorium (10620 John Jay Hopkins Drive). Seating is limited, so order soon!

Monday, January 26, 2026
12 PM

Dr. Michael Coonrod is a retired piano faculty member from the Interlochen Center for the Arts where he tutored classical piano students for 46 years. During that time, he earned his Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, MD. Pianist Danny Holt performs around the globe in concert halls (Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Hollywood Bowl), clubs (Joe’s Pub, The Blue Whale, Copenhagen Jazzhouse) art galleries (MASS MoCA, Hammer Museum), churches, living rooms, and wherever else he can find a piano and someone to listen.

Wednesday, January 28, 2026
7:30 PM

*AT THE ATHENAEUM MUSIC & ARTS LIBRARY*

The winter series continues Wednesday, January 28, at the Athenaeum with another local debut by the Paul Cornish Trio, featuring Cornish on piano, Jermaine Paul on bass, and Jonathan Pinson on drums. The Los Angeles–based Cornish has been traveling the world for the past three years as the pianist in saxophone-giant Joshua Redman’s quartet. In 2025 he issued his debut recording as a leader on the prestigious Blue Note Records label, You’re Exaggerating!, following in the footsteps of eminent Blue Note pianists from Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons through Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, Geri Allen, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Renee Rosnes, to Jason Moran, Robert Glasper,  James Francies, and Gerald Clayton.

Monday, February 2, 2026
12 PM

Peter Sprague started playing guitar when he was 12 and attended a year of study at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. Over the past decade, jazz pianist and Origin Records recording artist Danny Green has earned recognition as a bandleader and as a composer with a gift for spinning supple, absorbing narratives. Green’s growing portfolio of vibrant sounds—an enchanting mix of jazz, classical, and Brazilian rhythms—has captured the attention of critics around the world, including DownBeat Magazine, Jazziz, San Diego Union Tribune, the Boston Globe, and Public Radio International. It’s no small wonder that Green has earned two San Diego Music awards for Best Jazz Album and an additional award for Best Jazz Artist. Bassist Mackenzie Leighton is a bass player specializing in jazz and theater.

Monday, February 9, 2026
12 PM

Lesi Mei has been involved in many fields—such as bioengineering and kinesiology—but piano and classical music have molded her into the person she is. In front of the keys, her background and personality manifest in dazzling virtuosity and stunning musicality. Trevor Haumschilt-Rocha is emerging on international stages and is heralded for his "reverberant, expressive baritone with outstanding diction" (Opera News) and "confident, robust Italian singing" (Times Union).

Saturday, February 14, 2026
6 PM & 8:30 PM (two shows)

*AT THE ATHENAEUM MUSIC & ARTS LIBRARY*

Saturday, February 14, brings a special Valentine’s Day appearance by a favorite Athenaeum performer, Anat Cohen, with Quartetinho. The band plays two separate 75-minute performances, one at 6 p.m. and the other at 8:30 p.m. The word quartetinho is Portuguese for “little quartet,” although the players make a big, color-rich sound, each an ace on multiple instruments: Anat on various clarinets, Tal Mashiach on bass and guitar, Vitor Gonçalves on piano and accordion, and James Shipp on vibraphone and percussion. Their concerts showcase compositions by each member of the band and by the great masters such as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Egberto Gismonti, Thelonious Monk, Augustín Barrios Mangoré, and more. The result is boundlessly melodic and lyrical.

Monday, February 23, 2026
12 PM

A musical prodigy born and raised in Italy, Chiara Capobianco began performing with orchestras touring all over Europe starting at age 15. Chiara studied classical piano, flute, and ballet before falling in love with the harp. Having lived abroad and performed across the globe, this international award-winning harpist is pleased to now call San Diego her home. Her eclectic musical talents along with her charming personality shine with local and global audiences alike.

Monday, February 23, 2026
7:30 PM

This special “lineage” program combines world-class performers and pedagogues in their debut performance as a trio, featuring romantic lyricism alongside playful folk melodies, culminating in Dvorak’s always riveting “Dumky” piano trio.

Monday, March 2, 2026
12 PM

Born and raised in a musical family, Giorgia Renosto is an Italian vocalist who entered the artistic world at the young age of 14. Highly exposed to classical music and opera by her grandfather, a clarinet player, she enriched her musical background with jazz by starting her formal training in Torino, Italy. Her ability to focus on various types of vocal styles inside the extremely diverse world of Vocal Jazz allowed her to capture elements of vocal technique from different sources of inspiration and at 17, she was selected as one of the winners of the “Giovani Proposte” of the Italian contest “Sanremo Giovani.”

Monday, March 16, 2026
7:30 PM

We eagerly welcome pianist Conor Hanick to the Athenaeum for the first time for an adventurous solo recital featuring Charles Ives’s monumental first sonata and two Schubert Impromptus paired with a new revision of Samuel Carl Adams’s Three Impromptus (a West Coast premiere) inspired by Schubert. 

Wednesday, March 18, 2026
7:30 PM

*AT THE ATHENAEUM MUSIC & ARTS LIBRARY*

Next up in the series, on Wednesday, March 18, is the return of another Athenaeum favorite, Norway’s Tord Gustavsen Trio, featuring Gustavsen on piano, Steinar Raknes on bass, and Jarle Vespestad on drums. Since the release of his first recording in 2003, on the landmark ECM Records label, Gustavsen created a new sound that commanded worldwide attention, an extraordinary achievement given the rich history of piano jazz. With only a few carefully chosen notes, he draws listeners into a musical world where melody is cherished as much as the freedom to explore textures and soundscapes. His bands unite beauty and emotional intensity in a unique, immediately identifiable Nordic jazz sound that has established Gustavsen as Scandinavia's leading jazz artist.

Monday, March 23, 2026
7:30 PM

*AT THE ATHENAEUM MUSIC & ARTS LIBRARY*

The winter series concludes Monday, March 23, with a local debut by the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, featuring Wilkins on alto sax, Micah Thomas on piano, Ryoma Takenaga on bass, and Savannah Harris on drums. Wilkins burst onto the music scene in 2020 with the release of his Blue Note recording debut, Omega. October 2024 saw the release of Wilkins’ third album on Blue Note, Blues Blood. Accolades, awards, and critical acclaim have followed with each of Wilkins’ album releases. In 2020, Omega was named the best new jazz release by The New York Times and the best debut jazz album by National Public Radio (NPR). Two years later, Wilkins’ sophomore album on Blue Note, The 7th Hand, topped many year-end lists, including NPR, The New York Times, The Financial Times, and JazzTimes.

Tuesday, April 14, 2026
7:30 PM

The Diderot String Quartet will make their Athenaeum debut with a journey to 18th century Vienna, featuring masterpieces by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. One of the premiere ensembles performing on gut strings and historical instruments, this dynamic group (Adriane Post, violin; Johanna Novom, violin; Kyle Miller, viola; Paul Dwyer, cello) breathes new life into old works.

Monday, May 4, 2026
7:30 PM

Specializing in the rich and varied “sound-world” of the late 17th century, the Artifex Consort (Malachai Komanoff Bandy, Rebecca Landell, and Eva Lymenstull, bass viols; John Lenti, theorbo; Ian Pritchard, keyboards) closes our season with works showcasing the viola da gamba as an ensemble instrument outside of the English consort tradition, during the height of its later flourishing in parts of England and Germany. The program features virtuosic music for two bass viols by Christopher Simpson and Johannes Schenck, alongside lush and ingenious—though little-known—works for three bass viols by Benjamin Hely and Johann Michael Nicolai.