New Perspectives into Ancient Greek Culture: Hairstyles | Katherine Schwab Art History Lecture

NEW DATE: Wednesday, February 26, 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.

Art History Lecture

Feb 27

Artist Talk

Julian Tan: End Trances | Artist Talk

Artist Talk

Thursday, February 27, 2025
5:30–6 PM members-only reception; 6 PM general reception; 6:30 PM lecture

Please join us for an artist talk with Julian Tan. He will share a special presentation on his Athenaeum show, End Trances, and how it connects to his career and process. A members-only reception will take place from 5:30–6:00 p.m. The reception for all ticketholders will take place at 6:00 p.m., followed by a lecture at 6:30 p.m.

Artist Talk

Mar 1

Artist Talk

Ana María Herrera | Artist Talk

Artist Talk

Saturday, March 1, 2025
5:30–6 PM members-only reception; 6 PM general reception; 6:30 PM lecture

Experience an intimate evening with Ana María Herrera, the renowned multidisciplinary artist behind Layered Memories, currently on exhibit at the Athenaeum Art Center. In her artist talk, Herrera will discuss her history and creative process, sharing how her identity as a Mexican-born American artist and community advocate informs her assemblages and creative process. 

Artist Talk

Mar 7

Jazz at the Athenaeum

Allison, Cardenas & Nash | Jazz at the Athenaeum

Jazz at the Athenaeum

Friday, March 7, 2025
7:30 PM

The series continues Friday, March 7, with a San Diego debut by Allison, Cardenas & Nash, a collective trio of top New York City–based artists bassist Ben Allison, guitarist Steve Cardenas, and saxophonist Ted Nash. The trio weave musical conversations that are full of subtlety and surprise. They have released four albums including their latest, Tell the Birds I Said Hello: The Music of Herbie Nichols, which features previously unknown music by Nichols, an underpraised pianist-composer often compared to Thelonious Monk.

Jazz at the Athenaeum

Mar 12

Jazz at the Athenaeum

Sullivan Fortner Trio | Jazz at the Athenaeum

Jazz at the Athenaeum

Wednesday, March 12, 2025
7:30 PM

Next up, on Wednesday, March 12, is a return visit by the remarkable Sullivan Fortner Trio, featuring Fortner on piano, Tyrone Allen on bass, and Kayvon Gordon on drums. New Orleans–native Sullivan Fortner has gained wide recognition as one of the most accomplished jazz musicians of his generation. His accolades include the 2015 Cole Porter Fellowship, the Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship, the 2016 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists and, in 2020, the Shifting Foundation Grant for artistic career development. A Grammy Award–winner, he has earned recognition in multiple DownBeat Critics Polls, winning first place as both Rising Star Pianist and Rising Star Jazz Artist. His broad range of musical associations includes artists such as Roy Hargrove, Stefon Harris, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Ambrose Akinmusire, and Wynton Marsalis.

Jazz at the Athenaeum

Mar 13

Special Lecture

Art of Wine and Eternal Rome | Barbara Baxter Special Lecture

Special Lecture

Thursday, March 13, 2025
7:30 PM

Savor the Eternal City’s history and culture paired with Italian wines. We hear tales of good and evil set among Rome’s monuments, fountains, aqueducts, and sculpture—heroes and villains paired with vino Italiano.

Special Lecture

Mar 13

Special Lecture Series

Art of Wine | Special Lecture Series Presented by Barbara Baxter

Special Lecture Series

Thursdays, March 13, 20 & 27, 2025
7:30 PM

Join wine whiz Barbara Baxter, who trained at Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Napa and studied in Italy and France, on a delightful romp through cultural history paired with harmonious wines. The Art of Wine will focus on three iconic winemaking regions which also emerged as cultural epicenters throughout history: the city of Rome, pairing outstanding Italian wines with architecture from the classical epoch; wines of Provence paired with the Impressionist artists; and the arrival of both the wine world and art world in innovative postwar Southern California. An entertaining dive: culture and viniculture!

Special Lecture Series

Mar 17

New Music

Shadings: Curated by Cellist Peter Ko | San Diego New Music

New Music

Monday, March 17, 2025
7:30 PM

“How far can we enter into a single moment, such that for that brief speck of time, for an instant, unison is registered?” This is the question that Charles Curtis poses in his liner notes for Tashi Wada’s Duets (2006–2008). Duets, starkly singular in focus and scope, centers around the concept of unison, complicated by issues of very gradual glissando, of descent—a process through which rich acoustical phenomena emerge, inviting the performers and listeners to deepen their perception ever further into a single moment.

New Music

Mar 19

Jazz at the Athenaeum

Avishai Cohen Quartet | Jazz at the Athenaeum

Jazz at the Athenaeum

Wednesday, March 19, 2025
7:30 PM

The series concludes on Wednesday, March 19, with the local debut of the Avishai Cohen Quartet, featuring Cohen on trumpet, Yonathan Avishai on piano, Barak Mori on bass, and Ziv Ravitz on drums. Cohen is globally recognized as a player-composer open to multiple strains of jazz and active as a leader, co-leader, and sideman. Aside from the acclaimed work with his quartet, he has also recorded and toured as part of the Mark Turner Quartet, the SFJAZZ Collective, and the 3 Cohens Sextet—with his sister, clarinetist-saxophonist Anat, and brother, saxophonist Yuval.

Jazz at the Athenaeum

Mar 20

Special Lecture

Provence & Impressionism | Barbara Baxter Special Lecture

Special Lecture

Thursday, March 20, 2025
7:30 PM

Light and love are served up in the art and wines of Southern France. Rounded and golden, soft and opulent—are we talking about wines from Provence or Impressionist art? We will explore this rewarding land and its culture.

Special Lecture

Mar 27

Special Lecture

Southern California | Barbara Baxter Special Lecture

Special Lecture

Thursday, March 27, 2025
7:30 PM

Southern California’s outrageous and fun art scene exploded in the postwar years parallel with California’s wine-world arrival. Join us for a dive into the era when Southern California art and wine became oh so cool.

Special Lecture

Mar 27

Athenaeum Jazz

Omar Sosa Quarteto Americanos | Athenaeum Jazz

Athenaeum Jazz

Thursday, March 27, 2025
7:30 PM

*AT SCRIPPS RESEARCH AUDITORIUM*
The spring series opens on Thursday, March 27, at Scripps Research with a long-anticipated local debut as a leader of acclaimed Cuban composer-pianist-bandleader Omar Sosa and his Quarteto Americanos, featuring Josh Jones on drums, Ernesto Mazar Kindelán on bass, and Sheldon Brown on sax, clarinet, and flute. Sosa is widely celebrated as one of the most versatile jazz artists on the scene today. His musical trajectory traces the African diaspora from Cuba to Brazil; from Central America to Ecuador’s African-descent communities; from San Francisco and New York to his current home base in Barcelona. True to his Afro-Cuban origins, Sosa fashions a spirited vision of uncompromising artistic generosity that embraces humanity at large. Nominated for seven Grammy awards and twice for the BBC World Music Awards, Sosa received a lifetime achievement award from the Smithsonian Associates in Washington, D.C., for his contribution to the development of Latin jazz in the United States.

Athenaeum Jazz

Mar 27

Athenaeum Jazz Series

Athenaeum Jazz Spring Series

Athenaeum Jazz Series

Thursday, March 27, 7:30 PM—Omar Sosa Quarteto Americanos (at Scripps Research)
Wednesday, April 9, 7:30 PM—Bill Frisell Trio (at Scripps Research)
Thursday, April 24, 7:30 PM—Ben Wendel Quartet (at the Athenaeum)
7:30 PM

We are pleased to announce the return of the Athenaeum Jazz series to the Scripps Research Auditorium (10620 John Jay Hopkins Drive, north of Genesee Avenue in Torrey Pines Mesa) for two out of three concerts in our annual spring series. Seating is limited for all three evenings, so early reservations are advised. Please join us for these three special performances featuring internationally acclaimed jazz artists Omar Sosa, Bill Frisell, and Ben Wendel.

Athenaeum Jazz Series

Mar 31

Art History Lecture

Art Nouveau Origins: Brussels | Diane Kane Art History Lecture

Art History Lecture

Monday, March 31, 2025
7:30 PM

Meet Victor Horta, Paul Hankar, and Henri van de Velde who originated the Art Nouveau style in Brussels. The movement elevated “craft” to an “art” and unified all art forms. In using modern materials and construction techniques, it eliminated historicism while emphasizing nature and movement through use of the whiplash line. Open floor plans and expansive use of glass, mirrors, and electricity brought transparency and spatial fluidity to once dark and constricted interiors.

Art History Lecture

Mar 31

Art History Series

Art Nouveau, 1890–1915 | Art History Lecture Series Presented by Diane Kane

Art History Series

Monday, March 31, April 7, 14 & 21, 2025
7:30 PM

The international art movement known as Art Nouveau flourished from the early 1890s to 1914. Rejecting historical references and traditional geometric forms, it featured florid vegetation, sinuous lines, and asymmetry. Although the design approach encompassed all visual art forms, it was most prevalent in architecture and the decorative arts. Furniture, mirrors, metalwork, art glass, carved plaster, and intricate paneling all featured the signature “whiplash” lines of Art Nouveau. Originating in Brussels, and highlighted in the Exposition Universelle of 1900 (better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition), the style is strongly associated with the wealthy and fashionable.

Art History Series

Apr 7

Art History Lecture

The Belle Époque: Paris | Diane Kane Art History Lecture

Art History Lecture

Monday, April 7, 2025
7:30 PM

The style gained popularity through exposure at the Paris Exposition. French architects Hector Guimard, Jules Lavirotte, and Frantz Jourdain experimented with optics, transparency, motion, and point of view. Decorative artists, like Louis Majorelle, Emile Gallé, and Georges de Feure, contributed furniture, glass, and metalwork that integrated into the overall design, while jewelry, paintings, and poster design continued to use Art Nouveau techniques independent of architecture.

Art History Lecture

Apr 8

Chamber Concert

Great Wall String Quartet | Chamber Concert

Chamber Concert

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.

Chamber Concert

Apr 9

Athenaeum Jazz

Bill Frisell Trio | Athenaeum Jazz

Athenaeum Jazz

Wednesday, April 9, 2025
7:30 PM

*AT SCRIPPS RESEARCH AUDITORIUM*
The series continues on Wednesday, April 9, at Scripps Research with the Bill Frisell Trio, featuring Frisell on guitar, Thomas Morgan on bass, and Rudy Royston on drums. Frisell’s career as a guitarist and composer has spanned more than 40 years and many celebrated recordings. Recognized as one of America’s most vital and productive performing artists, Frisell has contributed to the work of a staggering array of collaborators, including Paul Motian, John Zorn, Elvis Costello, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Rickie Lee Jones, Vinicius Cantuária, Marianne Faithfull, John Scofield, Bono, and Brian Eno, to name only a few. This work has established Frisell as one of the most sought-after guitar voices in contemporary music.

Athenaeum Jazz

Apr 14

Art History Lecture

Austrian Art Nouveau: Vienna | Diane Kane Art History Lecture

Art History Lecture

Monday, April 14, 2025
7:30 PM

The waning days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire coincided with a flourishing of Belle Époque artistic expressions in Eastern Europe. By the mid-1890s, the experimental Vienna Secession advocated for integrated design, while the “Wagner School” (named after Otto Koloman Wagner) supported a modern architecture where form followed function. Rebuilding, due to modernization, of Vienna led to entire sections of the city built in the Art Nouveau style. Artisans of the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshops) influenced the later Bauhaus, American Art Deco, Scandinavian Modernism, and Italian Craft and Design.

Art History Lecture

Apr 21

Art History Lecture

Catalan Gothic Art Nouveau: Barcelona | Diane Kane Art History Lecture

Art History Lecture

Monday, April 21, 2025
7:30 PM

Architect Antonio Gaudí was the greatest exponent of Catalan modernism. Influenced by neo-Gothic techniques and orientalism, he forged a unique organic style inspired by the complex geometry of natural forms. Although his very long career predates and postdates Art Nouveau’s heyday, his most original works coincide with the 1890–1915 period of this lecture series. His experimental work with hyperboloid and paraboloid arches influenced mid-century modernism, High Tech, postmodernism, and Deconstructivism.

Art History Lecture

Apr 24

Athenaeum Jazz

Ben Wendel Quartet | Athenaeum Jazz

Athenaeum Jazz

Thursday, April 24, 2025
7:30 PM

*AT THE ATHENAEUM MUSIC & ARTS LIBRARY*
The series concludes on Thursday, April 24, at the Athenaeum with the Ben Wendel Quartet, featuring Wendel on saxophone with an all-star rhythm section of Gerald Clayton on piano, Luca Alemanno on bass, and Jonathan Pinson on drums. Grammy-nominated saxophonist Ben Wendel was born in Vancouver and raised in Los Angeles. Currently living in Brooklyn, he has enjoyed a varied career as a performer, composer, and producer. Highlights include tours, performances, and/or recordings with artists such as Terence Blanchard, Bill Frisell, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Tigran Hamasyan, Antonio Sanchez, Eric Harland, Taylor Eigsti, Linda May Han Oh, Moonchild, Louis Cole, Daedelus, Snoop Dogg, and Prince. Wendel is a founding member of the Grammy-nominated group Kneebody. His 2023 record, All One, was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album category. His latest release, Understory: Live at the Village Vanguard (October 2024), features his longtime colleague, Gerald Clayton.

Athenaeum Jazz

May 12

Chamber Concert

New Orford String Quartet | Chamber Concert

Chamber Concert

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.

Chamber Concert

Tickets

HOME / TICKETS

NEW DATE: Wednesday, February 26, 2025
7:30 PM

Thursday, February 27, 2025
5:30–6 PM members-only reception; 6 PM general reception; 6:30 PM lecture