Looking Back Brown Bag Lecture Series

Join us for our September "Looking Back Brown Bag Lecture Series," featuring Joan Holbert-Hubert! She will share her narrative on The Middle Passage and Galveston, Texas.

Joan Holbert-Hubert, born in Waco, Texas, showed musical promise early, singing her first solo at age three and beginning piano at five. Encouraged by Mrs. Henrietta Miller Yancy, she developed as both a singer and pianist, later discovering classical music at A. J. Moore High School. She was crowned Miss Texas Teen Talent in 1964 and presented as a Waco Chapter Jack and Jill Debutante in 1965.

She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Prairie View A&M University, where she studied voice, performed with the A Cappella Concert Choir, and was mentored in Bel Canto technique by Dr. Robert A. Henry. She later earned Elementary Education certification through Prairie View A&M and the University of Houston–Clear Lake.

Joan taught music and education for more than 20 years, including service as the first African American Choral Music Director at La Marque High School and later as choral director at Kashmere Magnet High School of Music and Fine Arts, retiring in 2005. In 1998, she led Kashmere choir members to Accra, Ghana, for the First Heritage Choral Festival.

A 19-year member of the Houston Grand Opera Chorus, Joan performed internationally in productions including “Showboat” in Cairo and “Porgy and Bess” in Madrid. Her singing has also taken her across England, Africa, Canada, the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii, and many U.S. cities.

She has been a guest soloist aboard the S.S. Norway with the Fred Sample Jazz Combo and appeared in Ensemble Theatre productions such as “Black Nativity,” “The Gospel at Colonus,” “Voodoo MacBeth,” and “Crowns.” Joan is also a Charter Member of the Houston Ebony Opera Guild Chorus.

She remains active in civic, cultural, historical, and genealogical work, including the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project, the Spirit of Sankofa Chorale, and related port marker efforts. She has also served as Minister of Music, church soloist, clinician, and Adjunct Professor of Music at Texas Southern University.