- Alumni Excellence Awards -
We continue our Alumni Excellence Awards with honoree Barbara McAlister, Central High School Class of 1959.
A renowned American dramatic mezzo-soprano of Cherokee heritage, she began her operatic career as an apprentice with the Santa Fe Opera Company. Her international career was launched when she won the prestigious Loren Zachary Competition in Los Angeles. She was subsequently engaged to perform the dramatic mezzo-soprano repertoire in the opera houses of Passau, Koblenz, Bremerhaven, and Flensburg in Germany, as well as in Monte Carlo, Cannes, Modena, Ferrara, Paris, Lisbon and Hong Kong. She toured France with the New Bulgarian Opera as Ortrud in Lohengrin and returned the following year as the mezzo soloist in the Verdi Requiem.
Ms. McAlister has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and other prestigious performing arts centers in the U.S.. Proud of her Native American Heritage, she created the role of Qualla in Lindor Chlarsson's opera Mountain Windsong, based on the Cherokee Trail of Tears. She played Selu in the Trail of Tears drama at Tsa-la-gi in Tahlequah. She regularly performs traditional Cherokee songs for various groups and events. In addition to her musical talent, she is also an artist whose works have been shown at the Five Civilized Tribes, Jacobson House at the University of Oklahoma, Wharton Art Gallery, and Three Rivers Museum. In 1999 she was awarded the Cherokee Medal of Honor and received the Governor's Arts Award in 2019.
