Tickets

Thursday, November 21, 2024
7:30 PM

From Paris, surrealism spread to Belgium, where René Magritte became a leading figure. In New York, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Dorothea Tanning represented surrealism at Peggy Guggenheim’s Gallery of the Century. In Mexico City Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera together with a group of exiles from WWII, like Leonor Fini and Remedios Varo, organized and showed surrealist art. Exhibitions sprang up in Belgrade, Cairo, Prague, Brussels, London, and San Francisco. A historical survey of Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism at MOMA in 1936 introduced the movement to a wider audience.

Breton’s death in 1966 left no heir to unite the divergent branches of surrealist artists all over the world and led to the end of surrealism as a unified movement, but its influence continues today.

Sunday, December 1, 2024
7:30 PM

The series continues Sunday, December 1, with the Billy Childs Quartet, featuring Childs on piano, Matthew Stubbs on clarinet, Dan Chmielinski on bass, and Benjamin Ring on drums. Multi-Grammy-winner Billy Childs has been a favorite performer on the Athenaeum series going back to his debut at the library in 1996. He remains one of the most diversely prolific and acclaimed artists working in music today. As a composer, he has been commissioned by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Kronos Quartet, the Dorian Wind Quintet, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the American Brass Quintet, the Ying Quartet, the Lyris Quartet, and Anne Akiko Meyers.

Monday, December 2, 2024
7:30 PM

On Monday, December 2, Grammy-nominated pianist Andrius Žlabys will perform a varied program of works by J.S. Bach and César Franck and his own composition Echoes of Light, an homage to Mozart. Žlabys states, “At the center of the piece, there are two fragments from Mozart’s Requiem. [What follows is] influenced by Carl Sagan’s writings. I imagine fragments of Mozart’s Requiem continuing to echo through space and time, perhaps never again detected, yet always present.” Žlabys has received acclaim for his appearances with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Rotterdam Symphony, and Philharmonic Orchestra of Buenos Aires.

Thursday, December 5, 2024
7:30 PM

SDNVW (San Diego New Verbal Workshop) is a contemporary vocal ensemble inspired by the experimental music tradition of the late 20th century. They perform, improvise, and compose as a collective and frequently work with living composers to explore the unique sonic capabilities of the human voice in concert with instruments, electronics, and movement.

Thursday, January 9, 2025
7:30 PM

In addition to honoring their longtime collaborator composer Stuart Saunders-Smith with a performance of Notebook for ensemble, NOISE performs solo works by Matthew Burtner, Salina Fisher, and others.

January 9, 10 & 11, 2025
7:30 PM

San Diego New Music and the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library present the 2025 soundON Festival, exploring cutting-edge contemporary music from around the world. Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of San Diego New Music and the 25th Anniversary of San Diego New Music's ensemble-in-residence NOISE with all-time favorites alongside brand-new works. Enjoy three nights of concerts in two separate locations in San Diego!

Friday, January 10, 2025
7:30 PM

In addition to honoring their longtime collaborator composer Stuart Saunders-Smith with a performance of Notebook for ensemble, NOISE performs solo works by Matthew Burtner, Salina Fisher, and others.

Saturday, January 11, 2025
7:30 PM

In addition to honoring their longtime collaborator composer Stuart Saunders-Smith with a performance of Notebook for ensemble, NOISE performs solo works by Matthew Burtner, Salina Fisher, and others.

Thursday, January 16, 2025
7:30 PM

The fall series concludes Thursday, January 16, with the Athenaeum debut of the Alex Kautz Quartet, featuring Kautz on drums, Chico Pinheiro on guitar, John Ellis on saxophone, and Joe Martin on bass. Renowned for his musicality, groove, and knowledge of various genres, Kautz stands out as a distinguished percussionist, educator, and composer. With an unwavering passion for jazz and world music, he has crafted a captivating and distinct musical voice. A Brazilian artist based in New York City, Kautz has been an important part of the city’s music scene for the last decade and has played and/or recorded with some of the top artists in the industry today, including Tim Ries, Magos Herrera, Nilson Matta, Chico Pinheiro, Steve Wilson, Lenny Andrade, Fabio Gouvea, Helio Alves, Victor Prieto, and Lionel Loueke.

Thursday, January 23, 2025
7:30 PM

As an example of experimental archaeology, in 2009, Dr. Schwab and six students collaborated with a professional hairstylist to test whether or not the six Caryatids’ hairstyles could be recreated with a positive result. Tools and hair products, just like today, were important in the domestic sphere. The arrangement of hair became a clear signal of rites of passage and status within the community. Locks of hair were often dedicated in temples or cut before warriors left for battle. Together we will explore a range of ancient Greek hairstyles and their meanings for both individual and society.

Thursdays, January 23 & 30; February 6 & 13, 2025
7:30 PM

In this four-part lecture series Dr. Katherine Schwab will explore topics that help us discover a deeper understanding of the people and times in Ancient Greece. Using hairstyles, coinage, athletics, and jewelry, she will highlight objects to consider how a society over two millennia ago thought about adornment, objects, and activities that are quite familiar to us in our own lives today.

Thursday, January 30, 2025
7:30 PM

We carry pocket change as currency. The idea for these coins or coinage came from the ancient Greek world. The earliest coins, made of electrum at Sardis, rapidly evolved into silver coins of different weights and values. One drachma (the Greek monetary unit at the time) equaled a day’s wage. Both the front and back of the coin displayed designs, resembling miniature relief sculptures. Artists sometimes added their signature to the coins. Cities and islands developed unique images, an early form of advertising and branding. Once in circulation, Greek coins traveled great distances throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond. Even today, many of these ancient coins are admired in museums and sought by collectors for their beauty and rarity.

Thursday, February 6, 2025
7:30 PM

Several customs, traditions, and events in today’s modern Olympics can be traced back to the ancient competitions held at Olympia. Today’s victors are celebrated for their athletic prowess, as they were in ancient Greece. This lecture will focus on the important role of athletics in ancient Greece, the four Panhellenic sites, and the unique Panathenaic Games celebrated in Athens. As they are today, athletics were popular in ancient Greece, where boys and young men devoted time to working out in the palaestra (gymnasium) to maintain fitness and ultimately to be ready for combat. Even the passage of time was organized around the four-year interval between Olympic Games known as the Olympiad, and specific Olympiads were numbered as markers of the events and political developments associated with those times.

Monday, February 10, 2025
7:30 PM

On Monday, February 10, the Grammy-nominated ensemble AGAVE returns to the Athenaeum with Reginald Mobley, a countertenor noted for his “shimmering voice” (BachTrack) and renowned for his interpretation of baroque, classical, and modern repertoire. AGAVE will present American Originals, a program based on their album of the same name that features music by brilliant yet underrepresented composers and explores how the blending of European, African, and indigenous styles created uniquely American sounds. The ensemble will include Mobley, Co-Director Aaron Westman on violin and viola, Anna Washburn on violin and viola, Kevin Cooper on guitar and theorbo, Katherine Kyme on violin and viola, William Skeen on viola da gamba and violoncello, and Co-Director Henry Lebedinsky on harpsichord and piano.

Thursday, February 13, 2025
7:30 PM

Ancient Greek gold jewelry is renowned for its intricate designs and goldsmithing techniques, such as granulation. Adornment applied to both men and women, even to statues and other objects. Gold jewelry accompanied an individual throughout a lifetime to the grave. Statues could be adorned with wreaths or earrings, and vases could be adorned with painted gold necklaces. Women dedicated jewelry to a goddess in her temple. Royal families amassed extraordinary examples of goldwork, all of it ornate and substantial in size and weight. Numerous gold wreaths with leaves and acorns or berries have been discovered in royal tombs. Today some of the finest jewelers in Greece have found inspiration from these artifacts when developing their own jewelry for the public. In this lecture we will explore some of the finest examples of ancient Greek gold jewelry.

Tuesday, April 8, 2025
7:30 PM

The series continues Tuesday, April 8, with the Great Wall String Quartet performing a program of Mendelssohn, Schulhoff, and Beethoven. Its members share a vision to connect with more immediacy to audiences and to give guidance to the next generation of chamber musicians. In his role at the Deutsches Symphony Orchester Berlin, violinist Wei Lu is one of the youngest concertmasters in a major orchestra. Violinist Qi Zhou is a member of the prestigious chamber orchestra Philharmonisches Kammerorchester Muenchen. Xu Wenbo is the current viola and chamber music instructor at the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra Academy in Hamburg. Hailed in New York Concert Review as “a superb cellist with intense and sensuous sound,” Yao Zhao performs with a dynamism that has secured him a successful career as the principal cello of the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.

Monday, May 12, 2025
7:30 PM

The series concludes Monday, May 12, with the New Orford String Quartet presenting works by Mozart, Dinuk Wijeratne, and Schubert (Death and the Maiden). Violinists Andrew Wan and Jonathan Crow, violist Sharon Wei, and cellist Brian Manke formed their ensemble with the goal of developing a new model for a touring string quartet: bringing four elite orchestral leaders and soloists together on a regular basis over many years to perform chamber music at the highest level. The Toronto Star has described this outcome as “nothing short of electrifying.” They have seen astonishing success, giving annual concerts for national CBC broadcast and receiving two Opus Awards for Concert of the Year and a 2017 JUNO Award for Best Classical Album. Recent seasons have featured return engagements in Chicago, Montreal, and Toronto, as well as their New York City debut on Lincoln Center’s Great Performers series.