'Songs of Alice Barnett: A San Diego Composer’s Unsung Legacy' | Concert-Lecture Series presented by Katina Mitchell & Yewon Lee | Athenaeum Music & Arts Library | La Jolla | Library Concert
Monday: 6:30 PM
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"Songs of Alice Barnett: A San Diego Composer’s Unsung Legacy"
Concert-Lecture Series presented by Dr. Katina Mitchell and Dr. Yewon Lee
Mondays, June 16, 23 & 30, 2025
In an enlightening and entertaining concert and lecture series, vocalist Dr. Katina Mitchell introduces audiences to a long overlooked local music luminary, composer Alice Barnett. Over three evenings, Monday, June 16, 23, and 30, Mitchell will discuss this valued representative of the art song while also performing Barnett’s works in Mitchell’s lovely soprano voice with piano accompaniment by Dr. Yewon Lee.
Within the classical tradition, even the most sophisticated female musicians receive less enduring celebration than their male contemporaries, and Alice Barnett (1886–1975), later known as Alice Barnett Stevenson, a renowned female art song composer who spent her life in San Diego, deserves rediscovery. Despite national praise during her lifetime—when her works were performed from local schools to New York stages—her name has faded into obscurity.
Barnett’s life was marked by artistic determination, early divorce, single motherhood, and musical entrepreneurship. Trained in Chicago and Berlin, she built her career in San Diego, composing, performing, and producing concerts. A co-founder of the San Diego Symphony Association, she was also a passionate music educator and arts advocate. Her Impressionist-inspired art songs were hailed as both beautiful and adventurous, earning her the description of “one of the greatest song writers in the country.” Her story reveals a dynamic cultural legacy hidden in plain sight—a woman who shaped her city’s musical life and deserves recognition today.
Individual Lectures: $35 member / $45 nonmember / $12 student; Series of 3 Lectures: $99 member / $129 nonmember / $30 student
