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New Perspectives into Ancient Greek Culture: Athletics | Katherine Schwab Art History Lecture
Feb 6
Art History Lecture
New Perspectives into Ancient Greek Culture: Athletics | Katherine Schwab Art History Lecture
Art History Lecture

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.

Art History Lecture
AGAVE with Reginald Mobley, countertenor | Chamber Concert
Feb 10
Chamber Concert
AGAVE with Reginald Mobley, countertenor | Chamber Concert
Chamber Concert

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.

Chamber Concert
New Perspectives into Ancient Greek Culture: Jewelry | Katherine Schwab Art History Lecture
Feb 13
Art History Lecture
New Perspectives into Ancient Greek Culture: Jewelry | Katherine Schwab Art History Lecture
Art History Lecture

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.

Art History Lecture
New Perspectives into Ancient Greek Culture: Hairstyles | Katherine Schwab Art History Lecture
Feb 26
Art History Lecture
New Perspectives into Ancient Greek Culture: Hairstyles | Katherine Schwab Art History Lecture
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
Julian Tan: End Trances | Artist Talk
Feb 27
Artist Talk
Julian Tan: End Trances | Artist Talk
Artist Talk

Thursday, February 27, 2025
6 PM 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. The reception will take at 6:00 p.m., followed by a lecture at 6:30 p.m.

Artist Talk
Allison, Cardenas & Nash | Jazz at the Athenaeum
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
Sullivan Fortner Trio | 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
Art of Wine and Eternal Rome | Barbara Baxter Special Lecture
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
Art of Wine | Special Lecture Series Presented by Barbara Baxter
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
Avishai Cohen Quartet | Jazz at the Athenaeum
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
Provence & Impressionism | Barbara Baxter Special Lecture
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
Southern California | Barbara Baxter 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
Art Nouveau Origins: Brussels | Diane Kane Art History Lecture
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
Art Nouveau, 1890–1915 | Art History Lecture Series Presented by Diane Kane
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
The Belle Époque: Paris | Diane Kane Art History Lecture
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
Great Wall String Quartet | Chamber Concert
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
Austrian Art Nouveau: Vienna | Diane Kane Art History Lecture
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
Catalan Gothic Art Nouveau: Barcelona | Diane Kane 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
New Orford String Quartet | Chamber Concert
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