The Timothy Long Prize

Barbara McAlister is an American dramatic mezzo-soprano of Cherokee Indian heritage.

While attending university, McAlister’s music theater career began with summer stock musicals in Dallas and at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. In California, Barbara studied acting with Sondra Rodgers, Jay Silverherls, and Raymond Shepler. Her operatic career started with apprenticeships at Central City and Santa Fe Opera. She also attended AIMS (the American Institute of Musical Studies) in Graz. Barbara McAlister went on to perform nationally with the The Washington Opera Company, Cherokee Heritage Center, Arizona Opera, San Diego Opera, Tulsa Opera, Florentine Opera, New York Grand Opera, Opera New England, and The Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Ms. McAlister’s international career was launched when she won the prestigious Loren Zachary Competition in Los Angeles which lead to European auditions. She performed the dramatic mezzo-soprano repertoire on Festverträge in the German opera houses of Passau, Koblenz, Bremerhaven, and Flensburg. And later on, Barbara performed that repertoire in Monte Carlo, Cannes, Modena, Ferrara, Paris, Lisbon and Hong Kong. Career highlights include touring France with the New Bulgarian Opera as Ortrud in Lohengrin and as the mezzo soloist in the Verdi Requiem. She was also a grant recipient of the Wagner Society of New York. Ms. McAlister has been heard as a soloist in concert at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Weill Recital Hall, appearing with such prominent orchestras as the Houston Symphony, the Düsseldorf Symphony, and the Symphony in Ulm.

Barbara McAlister has given recitals for the Oklahoma State Arts Council Touring Program, singing opera arias and Native American songs in the Cherokee. She created the role of Qualla in Lindor Chlarsson’s opera Mountain Windsong, based on the Cherokee Trail of Tears. In 2002, she played Selu the Corn Woman in the Trail of Tears musical-drama at Tsa-la-gi outdoor amphitheater in Tahlequah which caused Tulsa World to remark on "the power of her voice and presence elevates every scene in which she appears.”

Since 2009, Ms. McAlister has worked as a fine arts instructor and performer for the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma – where she teaches her young students the art of vocal performance. Barbara has served the Cherokee community in an outstanding way. In recognition of her achievements and years of service in her professional and voluntary activities, the City of Muskogee honors the 10th of March as “Barbara McAlister Day” each year.

McAlister was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2013. She is a recipient of the Cherokee Medal of Honor and the Cherokee National Historical Society’s SevenStar Award for Contemporary Achievement. Barbara McAlister was awarded with a Governor's Arts Award in 2019 by the Oklahoma Art Council. In 2025, she was honored with The Plimpton Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Barbara McAlister is also a talented visual artist whose paintings have been shown at the Five Civilized Tribes Museum, the Gibson House in Oklahoma, and the Morton Contemporary Art Gallery in Philadelphia. Many of her paintings are in private collections throughout the United States and Europe.