“PAINTINGS OF SEAN MOORE”

"Winthrop Park, Winter oil on canvas, 20" x 24" © 1999, Sean Moore

“The Paintings of Sean Moore” will be on display in the Gallery of the Newton Free Library August 2 - 28 with an opening reception, Thursday, August 7, 7:00PM.
This artist is truly a man for all seasons, evoking the hush of a first snow blanketing the ground or the delight of sitting outside on a sunny spring afternoon in his oil paintings. “I often paint a given scene a number of times but in different media, at varied times of day, in all seasons and from various point of view to reflect the variety of moods of a place,” he says.
His rich, sometimes contrasting colors create a warm, inviting glow especially the brick reds for Harvard Square and Back Bay, illuminated by golden lights. He likes to paint night scenes as it gives him a variety of light sources to choose from. “When hundreds of electric lights glare and throw shadows, I can pick the ones I want to suit my composition; during the day I defer to the single light source of the sun.” Twilight scenes of Beacon Hill at Christmastime or Harvard Square alight at night are particularly effective.
His Boston scenes reflect the excitement of city life in the hubbub of Harvard Square or the respite among the tumult in a patio tucked away behind a Beacon Hill townhouse or a swanboat gliding by on a silver river beneath a weeping willow. His New England scenes are just as appealing whether it’s a painting of the old North Bridge in Concord, the boathouse on Lake Champlain or a pile of weathered lobster buoys or lobster traps observed from an interesting perspective. House paintings from the Cape to Swampscott to Newton capture the individual character of each place. “A house that is a home will have a kind of personality that will distinguish it from others,” he says. As with all his works, he draws out a special sense of place by paying close attention to the subject before him and imbuing it with a mood particular to the time of day and season.
Newton resident Moore has exhibited his works for more than 30 years at Harvard University, Worcester Art Museum, the Art Institute of Boston and many other places. His works hang in dozens of corporate and private collections. He shows regularly as a member of the Museum of Fine Arts and Cambridge Art Association. His book, How to Make Money as an Artist, was published in 2000.

For more information on Sean Moore, please visit his website at www.seanmoore.org

Photo by Susan Wilson

Pianist Shuann Chai will return to the Newton Free Library for a concert of music by Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin and local composer Yehudi Wyner on Thursday, July 10, 7:30PM.
Chai has been heard in solo and chamber music concerts throughout the northeastern USA and around the globe. She has performed on the Tiffany Series in Montreal, the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival, in a chamber music concert tour of eastern Germany and as a guest recitalist at Qinghua University in Beijing. Most recently, she was the soloist for Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Philharmonia Orchestra of Kiev. Her live performances and interviews have been broadcast on radio and television stations such as WGBH Boston, Vermont Public Radio, Ukraine National, Radio-Canada and Radio-Sherbrooke (Quebec). Currently, she is completing her Ph.D. in Musicology at Brandeis University.

The Lavazza Chamber Ensemble, composed of Jan Pfeiffer, cello, Frances Rios, viola and Kristina Nilsson, violin will perform a Beethoven trio and Mozart’s Divertimento in E-flat at the Newton Free Library on Tuesday, July 22, 7:30PM.
Founded in 1990, the ensemble was named after Santino Lavazza, the maker of Pfeiffer’s cello, which was made in Milan in 1751. The group has performed on the concert series at King’s Chapel, MIT, Brandeis and Tufts universities, All Newton Music School, Emmanuel Church and St. Paul’s Church, among others.
Pfeiffer is the founder and director of Lavazza. She performs with the Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Ballet and Rhode Island Philharmonic. She was a concerto soloist in Carnegie Hall, a recitalist at Lincoln Center, toured Italy with Musicisti Americani and was featured on Charles Kuralt’s television program. She has performed chamber music with Michael Tilson Thomas, members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and pianist Hung Kuan Chen. Director of the Chamber Music Center at Wellesley College, she teaches at Boston College and the All Newton Music School, in addition to her home studio.
Rios has performed with the Boston College Faculty Piano Trio and played in the Orchestra of the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, the National Lyric Opera, the Masterworks Chorale Orchestra, Birmingham (AL) Symphony, Santa Barbara (CA) Symphony and the symphonies of Springfield, Vermont and New Hampshire. She has taught violin and viola at the Harlem School of the Arts, Elementary Instrumental Music in the Kansas City, Kansas schools and now teaches privately in the Milton ALP program.
Nilsson has played regularly in the first violin sections of the Boston Pops Esplanade and the Boston Ballet orchestras for more than 20 years. She has also appeared as soloist with many orchestras including the National Symphony, Newton Symphony and the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of which she is a co-founder. Currently holding the position of Concertmaster with Pro Arte and several other regional orchestras, she has also served previously in that capacity with many orchestras including the Festival Dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy and the Berkshire Music Festival Orchestra at Tanglewood. Under the auspices of the American Schubert Institute, she has performed every violin work in the Schubert oeuvre. With her two sisters, also professional violinists, Nilsson can be heard on an Angel CD featuring Garrison Keillor, “Now it is Christmas Again.” As a substitute with the Boston Symphony, she participated in recording the soundtracks for the movies “Schindler’s List,” “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Accidental Tourist.”

Pianist Bill Green, of the famed WHDH “Ken and Bill Show,” will appear at the Newton Free Library on Thursday, July 17, 7:00PM. Playing showtunes, Viennese waltzes and jazz standards, Green will intersperse his performance of the pieces with information about the composers.
Co-hosted by Ken Wilson, “The Ken and Bill Show” started in 1948 with an expected run of 6 weeks, but the daily program of organ and piano music was so popular, it lasted for 19 years and spawned several albums. In 1956, when WHDH began broadcasting on television as Channel 5, Green was named leader of a jazz quartet for a daily show hosted by Jess Cain. This program lasted for 11 years and was a showcase for hundreds of movie, stage and recording stars. Green was also pianist for the Ruby Newman Society Orchestra for several years.

PIANIST CONSTANTIN FINEHOUSE

Pianist Constantin Finehouse will make a welcome return to the Library for a concert of music by Beethoven, Chopin and others on Thursday, August 21, 7:00PM.
Finehouse keeps an active performing schedule, most recently appearing in a symposium at New England Conservatory hosted by William Bolcom where he performed the complete violin/ piano sonatas by the composer. He has performed in the Oklahoma Mozart Festival, the Hamptons Shakespeare Festival, played chamber music at St. Louis Symphony Hall and participated in masterclasses led by Rudolf Buchbinder in Zurich, among his many accomplishments. This coming season he will give chamber music recitals in Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, MI and Santa Monica, CA and make a featured appearance with the Newton Community Chorus and Orchestra. He teaches privately and at local schools.

FLUTE/PIANO DUO

Photo by Susan Wilson

Flutist Vanessa Holroyd and pianist Joy Cline Phinney will present a concert of music by Telemann, Paganini, Dohnanyi, Doppler and Liebermann on Thursday, August 21, 7:30PM at the Library.
Holroyd has and continues to appear in numerous chamber music festivals and masterclasses throughout Boston and New England, frequently collaborating with Phinney. She and Phinney were featured artists in the 2002 Tillett Gardens “Arts Alive” concert series in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands and will be returning there in 2005 to perform in St. Croix. Last year Holroyd was a top prizewinner in the prestigious Young Artist Competition sponsored by the National Flute Association.
Phinney has appeared in numerous solo and chamber music recitals across the United States and Europe. She served as the first Artist-in-Residence and Assistant Director of
the Arts Program at the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies in Maryland, and was the inaugural artist in the Tillett Gardens concert series in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Phinney has collaborated in chamber music concerts, recording projects and radio and television programs with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and others. She was featured recently with members of the Boston Symphony on the WGBH live radio broadcast and “Urban Update” television broadcast, “No Fences: Music in Black and White.”

NEWTON AUTHOR SUSAN NEISULER

Newton author Susan Neisuler will speak about her new book Justice at the City Gate: Social Policy, Social Services and the Law at the Library on Wednesday, July 16, 7:30PM, followed by a booksigning.
Justice at the City Gate is a critical examination of the breakdown of services for poor families and the chaos of juvenile courts. Why do social service agencies fail in their mission to bring succor to needy families? How did the situation get this way and who’s responsible for fixing it?
As an attorney in the Boston Juvenile Court system and former American history teacher, Neisuler brings a sharp, experienced eye to the scrutiny of welfare mothers, foster children and what happens to families today in our courts.

AUTHOR DOROTHEE ROZENBERG

Dorothee Rozenberg will read from Girl with Two Landscapes: The Wartime Diary of Lena Jedwab, 1941-1945, a striking and personal account by her mother. The talk will take place on Thursday, July 24, 7:30PM at the Library, followed by a booksigning. Rozenberg will place the book in context historically, read excerpts and speak about her involvement with publishing the English translation.
In June 1941, 16 year old Lena Jedwab left Bialystok, Poland for what was expected to be a summer-long vacation at camp in Russia. Then Germany invaded the Soviet Union. While she was stranded in a children’s home in Russia, her family would be killed at Treblinka. Left to agonize over the unknown fate of her family and the precariousness of her future, Jedwab began to keep a diary. In it she expresses her conflicted emotions between the gratitude she feels for being alive, taken care of and in school and the anger she feels about the war.
Her writing shows an exceptional literary talent, full of subtlety and sensitivity. The diary was written in Yiddish, not only because it was her mother tongue, but also as a conscious effort to maintain her Jewish identity. The current English version by Solon Beinfeld is largely due to the efforts of her daughter.
Rozenberg is a technical translator and formerly worked in publishing. Her mother lives in Paris.

COMING IN SEPTEMBER

On Sunday, September 7, at 4:00PM, longtime community leaders Herb Regal and Judy Austin will host a sizzling cook-out at the Newton home of Library Trustee President Sandy Butzel and her husband John. (Regal and Austin recently relocated to Duxbury.)
Elected officials and community leaders will be flipping hamburgers and spearing hotdogs to raise money for the Library - with no political speeches. “Chefs of the Day” will include invited guests Newton Mayor David Cohen and many state representatives, aldermen and Newton school committee members.
The barbeque will be held rain or shine. Suggested contributions range from $25 – 250/person, although any amount is welcome. Please make checks payable to the Newton Free Library, indicate number in your party and send to Development Office, Newton Free Library, 330 Homer Street, Newton, MA 02459. Include your address with your payment so that we can follow-up with more details.
For further information, please call the Library at 617-796-1407.

CHILDREN'S ROOM DEVELOPS SCIENCE PROGRAMS WITH GRANT FUNDS

Last fall, the Children’s Room received Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant funds to offer an exciting program to children and their parents/ caregivers. Mother Goose Asks, “Why?” is a family literacy program that uses picture-books and hands-on activities to introduce and emphasize science concepts to children ages 3 - 8.
Over the past few months, several sessions of the program have successfully been held and more sessions will be offered in the coming months. For more information on upcoming programs please see page 9.
These grant funds have also been used to purchase museum passes to the Children’s Discovery Museums in Acton. The passes may be obtained from the Audio Visual Department starting this summer.
Mother Goose programs are developed by the Vermont Center for the Book. They are supported in this state by the Massachusetts Center for the Book and federally funded with LSTA funds through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

NEW LIBRARY CATALOG

The Minuteman Library Network has launched a new catalog that is clearer and easier to use. It will allow more precise searching and let users distinguish easily between various formats such as video vs. DVD, etc. It will also make locating items within the Library easier and will offer several new features, such as the ability to print bibliographic lists and their locations. Users will now have the online capability to update PINs and e-mail addresses, too.
As of July 1, patrons must reset their PINS at the Library or online. Please see Library staff for assistance.

For more information, please click here to visit the Minuteman Library Network website.

LIBRARY TOURS & COMPUTER CLASSES

If you've got some extra time this summer, sign up for a one hour tour of the Library or a hands-on computer class in PC Basics, the Internet and more.

To register, please call Reference at 617-796-1380.

To view the current computer class schedule, please click here.

SELF-CHECK SERVICE TERMINATED

As of July 1, the Library will no longer provide self check service as the 3M company will not be able to main-tain the machine. We hope to have a new automated checkout in the future.