Newton Free Library Events

ARCHIVES

Unless noted otherwise, all events take place at the Library's Main Branch.
All events are free and open to the public.

Do you want to view a past month at the Library? If so, please click here for the Archives.
(Available for April, 2001 and on.)

July & August, 2004
Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
				1	2	3
4 Happy 4th of July! Library closed	5 Library closed	6 Short Fiction Writing Group, 7pm	7 "Brook Farm" author talk, 7:30PM	8 Main Hall reception, 7:30PM	9	10 Singing Group, Noon
11 Library closed	12 Children's Book Writers Group, 7pm _______ Gallery reception, 7pm	13 Green Decade Talk, 7PM _______ Board of Trustees Meeting, 8:30am	14 NSO concert, 7:30PM _______	15	16	17 Writing Workshop 10:30am
18 Library closed	19 Silverwood Trio concert, 7:30PM	20	21	22	23	24
25 Library closed	26	27	28 Children's Book Writers Group, 7pm	29	30	31
August, 2004
Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1 Library closed	2 Children's Book Writers Group, 7pm	3 Short Fiction Writing Group, 7pm	4	5 Art Reception, 6:30PM	6	7
8 Library closed	9	10	11 Social Bridge Intro, 7PM	12 Piano Trio, 7:30PM	13	14 Singing Group, Noon
15 Library closed	16	17 Holocaust Memoir Writers Talk, 7PM	18	19	20	21 Writing Workshop 10:30am
22 Library closed	23	24 Calyx Piano Trio, 7PM	25	26	27	28
29 Library closed	30	31

For more information on any of the Library events,
please call the Library at (617) 796-1360

Gallery & Main Hall Hours

Monday to Thursday 9:00 am to 9:00 pm
Friday 9:00 am to 6:00 pm
Saturday 9:00 am to 5:00pm
Sunday Noon to 5:00 pm

Closed Sundays in July & August

A R T E X H I B I T I N F O R M A T I O N

Are you interested in exhibiting your artwork at the Library? The Newton Free Library presents monthly exhibits by regional artists in the Gallery and Main Hall of the main library, a state-of-the-art facility which 11,000 people visit weekly. Please click here for more information.

G A L L E R Y / J U L Y

“REFLECTIONS ON LIFE” BY KHOI NGUYEN

Khoi Nguyen’s “Reflections on Life” will be exhibited in the Gallery of the Newton Free Library July 2 – 29, with a reception on Monday, July 12, 6 – 8:30PM.
Nguyen’s oil paintings have a surreal, sometimes stylized feel. “I devote myself to searching for beauty,” he states, and that searching quality carries over into the works themselves where the subject has a mystery about it, causing us to stare in wonder as we puzzle out the painting’s meaning. In “Ceramic and Rock” a yellow cloth floats above some vases as if it might settle on the tallest one. We marvel at the lack of gravity, the invisible pull of energy, the contrast between the soft cloth and hard clay and the otherworldly feeling of the piece. In “Ceramics,” a lifelike, delicate female statue stares at a tall urn – is she alive or another object placed in this stone walled room? The painting speaks soberly of our mortality and yet our immortality through art.
Inspiration comes to the artist from his subconscious, from listening to the earth and the “secret voices of nature,” from communal artistic activities. He states he has come to “an acceptance of daily life, a truth discovered in the struggles between happiness and suffering,” a state he must know much about, having lived through the war years in Vietnam. Something about the precise placement of marbles in a line in “Marbles in my Life #2” or the serenity of pale, empty pots and driftwood in “Still Life #9” speaks of this acceptance, if not resignation. Although “I Don’t Know” appears to ask a question, it seems to answer itself as two shadows lean in to ask guidance of their fleshed out self, a beautiful woman in black. She exemplifies a sort of hard-won wisdom with her set jaw and serious gaze, yet the simplicity and balance of the stylized piece give a sense of lightness and of comfort. Nguyen has exhibited in Vietnam and in many galleries in this country from California to Maryland and Virginia. In this area he has had solo and small group shows at Boston City Hall, Harvard University, at Eclipse Gallery on Newbury Street and at other places.

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M A I N H A L L / J U L Y

“WORKS ON PAPER” BY SHLOMIT MINTZ

Shlomit Mintz’ “Works on Paper” will be exhibited in the Main Hall of the Newton Free Library July 2 – 29, with a reception on Thursday, July 8, 7:30PM.
Mintz’ hand captures the delicacy of flowers and plants in both watercolor and colored pencil. A latecomer to painting and drawing (at age 56), she sets each subject up as a study of line, form and color. The beauty is in the simplicity: a stark branch with drooping blossoms, a slender green stalk with soft unfurling iris petals, a bouquet of hydrangea in all its multitude of colors from lilac to pale aqua. One can feel the downy milkweed and the springy leaf. Mintz only paints from life – with fresh flowers - as their vibrancy is lost in photographs, she feels.
The artist has studied at the Jewish Community Center in Newton and exhibited at Hebrew Rehabilitation Center and at the Newton Senior Art Show which has awarded her many prizes.

M A I N H A L L & G A L L E R Y / A U G U S T

NEWTON ART ASSOCIATION MEMBERS SHOW

The Newton Art Association’s 2004 Annual Competition Show will fill the Newton Free Library’s Main Hall and Gallery with paintings, drawings and prints and three-dimensional work in the display cases from August 3 – 30. This exhibit represents the best work of the more than 100 members: landscapes, portraits, still lifes and abstracts and in the cases: silk work, pottery, glass boxes, small sculpture and more. An opening reception is planned for Thursday, August 5, 6:30 – 8:30PM to which all are invited.
Among the annual awards NAA will present, will be a special "Children's Favorite Award" based on the results of the votes children (under the age of 14) place in a special voting box set up at the exhibit.
Newton Art Association is a vibrant community-based organization. The membership is a diverse group of artists at all levels of development. From longstanding art professionals and teachers to members who are just thinking about picking up a brush or a piece of charcoal, members find that NAA provides something for each and all. The group holds an open meeting the second Thursday of the month at the Senior Center where business, artistic support, networking and art demonstrations by New England's best guest artists take place. The Association actively brings members art work into the public eye by arranging private and public space exhibitions. Scholarship awards to Newton high school seniors, painting days "en pleine air" at beautiful locations and critique nights at members’ homes are some of the special events that the Association organizes for the community.
All artists and art lovers are welcome to join. For questions or comments, please call Marian Dioguardi, Co-President at 617-332-9967.

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Library groups meet at the Newton Free Library, 330 Homer Street, Newton Centre, unless otherwise noted. All meetings are free and open to the public.

	African Literatures Discussion Group
	This group will resume in the fall.
	Children's Book Writers Group
	Meetings are held usually on the first Monday or on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 7:00PM in Meeting Room A. This group is for writers who have work in progress. Pre-registration required. Please call Jacqueline Davies at 781-455-8334 or Karen Day at 244-4830 for more information. Meeting Dates: Monday, July 12 and August 2 or Wednesday, July 28.
	Contemporary Books Discussion Group
	This group will resume in the fall.
	Great Books Discussion Group
	This group will resume in the fall.

	Newton Camera Club
	This group will resume in the fall.
	Sequences: Women Tell Our Stories Group
	This group will resume in the fall.
	Short Fiction Writing Group
	This workshop provides an atmosphere of expert support to polish short fiction. It is geared for published writers as well as those who are actively pursuing publication. Pre-registration is required: 781-647-7246. The group meets the first Tuesday of the month, in Meeting Room A, 7:00PM. Meeting Dates: July 6 & August 3. Please bring 5 copies of work to the meeting. Coordinator is now John Good.
	Short Story Discussion Group
	This group will resume in the fall.
	Singing Group
	This group will resume in the fall.
	The Writer's Voice Group
	This writing group combines support and time for practice, reading samples and receiving feedback. Led by Tom Yee, the group meets on the third Saturday of the month, 10:30 – Noon in Meeting Room A. Pre-registration required: Call 630-0742. Meeting Dates: July 17 & August 21.
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All concerts are free and open to the public. For directions to the Library, please click here.

Calyx Piano Trio to Perform

The Calyx Piano Trio will return to the Library for a concert that is scheduled to include works by Dvorak, Haydn and Schumann on Tuesday, August 24, at 7:00PM. Members are: Catherine French, violin, Jennifer Lucht, cello and Nina Ferrigno, piano.
All seasoned chamber musicians, the members of the ensemble have given chamber music concerts throughout the United States and abroad, and individually have performed with leading national orchestras including the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops, Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Calyx is making its mark as a dynamic young group with expressive ensemble playing and brilliant virtuosity. The Boston Globe has praised their “…beautiful, finely detailed sound….”

Members of NSO Give Concert

Members of the Newton Symphony Orchestra will perform a chamber concert at the Library on Wednesday, July 14, 7:30PM. Jeff Wolfeld, clarinet, Debbie Linder, violin, Monica Mitchell, violin, David Budil, viola, Karen Belsley, cello and Lawrence Pratt, bass will perform Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet and Rossini’s Duetto for Cello and Double Bass.
The Improper Bostonian has raved about the orchestra’s performances: “There were hundreds of great orchestral performances this year — dozens of which could qualify as Boston’s Best. But this one was a surprise .... The NSO is a fine band [and] this world premiere was staggering.”
Founded in 1965, NSO presents a four-concert series each year plus a concerto competition open to Newton students and a free family concert. Music Director is Jeffrey Rink who is also music director of Chorus Pro Musica and the Longy Chamber Orchestra and serves on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts.

Silverwood Trio to Perform

The Silverwood Trio, composed of Cindy Woolley, flute/soprano, Walter Halvorsen, cello and Paul Hoffman, piano/composer, will return to the Library with an eclectic concert on Monday, July 19, 7:30PM. Works will include arias by Handel, a sparkling Divertissement by Adalbert Gyrowetz, a contemporary of Beethoven, an airy, neo-Baroque dance suite with 1940s French harmony by Jean-Michel Damase and Canticle and Discourse by local composer Robert Polansky written for Silverwood this year.
The trio has performed extensively in the Greater Boston area at the Duxbury Art Complex Museum, the Brookline Library Music Association, the Federal Reserve Bank Concert Series, at MIT and the South Shore Conservatory. Their debut CD, “In this World,” was featured on “Classics in the Morning” on WGBH radio. Individually, the members have performed many solo, chamber and orchestral concerts.

Piano Trio to Play Mendelssohn & Dvorak

Pianist Shuann Chai will return to the Library with violinist Heidi Braun-Hill and cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer for a concert of Mendelssohn’s Trio in D minor and Dvorak’s Trio in E minor on Thursday, August 12, 7:30PM.
Chai has been heard in solo and chamber music concerts throughout the U.S. and around the globe. Recent performances include recitals at St. Martin-in-the-Fields and the Arnold Bax Festival in London, the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival in Vermont, the University of California at Davis and the Gliere Academy in Kiev, Ukraine.
Braun-Hill performs regularly as a member of Emmanuel Music, the Rhode Island Philharmonic, New England String Ensemble, and is a founding member of the Red House Opera Group. She has made concert appearances at Symphony Hall, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Cite de la Music in Paris and the Barbican Centre in London.
The Boston Globe describes Popper-Keizer’s approach to the cello as “marked by thrilling rhythmic snap, dazzling dispatch of every bravura challenge, and melodic phrasing of melting tenderness.” He has been featured as a soloist throughout the U.S., including recitals in Jordan Hall and at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. In 1998 and 1999, he was invited to Tanglewood to work with Mstislav Rostropovich and to understudy “Don Quixote” for Yo-Yo Ma. Popper-Keizer has concertized with members of the Borromeo and Muir String Quartets, the Boston Trio and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Recent appearances include the Rockport Chamber Music Festival.

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“Brook Farm: The Dark Side of Utopia” Author Talk

From Pennsylvania, author Sterling Delano will speak on Brook Farm: the Dark Side of Utopia at the Library on Wednesday, July 7, 7:30PM.
Life at Brook Farm (1841-46) resembled an Arcadian adventure, with the choir singing Mozart in the morning and the evenings filled with dance and dramatic performances – but how accurate was this image? In the first comprehensive examination of the famous utopian community in West Roxbury, Delano reveals a surprisingly grim side to paradise as the residents faced relentless financial pressures, a declining faith in their leaders and smoldering class antagonisms.
Brook Farm was the most celebrated of 119 communal experiments from 1800-1859, in part because of the Transcendentalist origins of some of its members and supporters: Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott and Hawthorne whose Blithedale Romance was a thinly-disguised account of his own half-year there. Although the community was founded as an agrarian society that would “insure a more natural union between intellectual and manual labor,” it ultimately turned to industry as the chief source of income. Many factors conspired against it, yet, despite its failure, the Brook Farmers recalled only its positive aspects, including the opportunities for women and its progressive educational program.
In this evocative account, Delano vividly chronicles the fervor and idealism as well as the dissension and unrest of that reform-minded age and this particular utopian experiment.
The author is a Professor of English at Villanova University.

Holocaust Memoir Writers to Speak

Rita Blattberg Blumstein and Alexandre Blumstein, Holocaust survivors from Poland, will tell their very different stories on Tuesday, August 17, at 7:00PM at the Library. Although originally from the same country, Rita’s family lived in the western, German-occupied side of Poland and Alexandre’s in the eastern side, annexed by the Soviets in 1939, which affected their experiences in various ways.
Rita’s memoir, Like Leaves in the Wind, recounts the grim reality of the war and post-war years for her family. As a two year old child in 1939, the Blattbergs fled Krakow as the Germans advanced, only to be deported into the Soviet Union. Released from the forced labor camp after the German invasion of 1941, they embarked on an epic journey to Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea and eventually came to a village in the Urals. They returned to their hometown to find very few survivors and after experiencing pervasive post-war anti-Semitism, they started a new life in the West. Rita’s memoir is enriched by a set of postcards sent by her grandmothers from occupied Poland. These comprise a unique set of documents, offering a glimpse into the life of the deportees and the contacts that existed between them and those in occupied Poland.
A Little House on Mount Carmel is based partly on Alex’s wartime diaries. Born and raised in Grodno, where Poles, Jews, Lithuanians and Byelorussians lived uneasily side-by-side, the little boy and his family escaped from the ghetto in 1939 to the house of a country doctor. Eventually the family found sanctuary in a small hut and together with four other survivors, dug a tiny shelter in which they all hid for 18 months. Finally liberated by the Soviet Army in 1944, they were reunited with Alex’s uncle and aunt whose extraordinary story of survival with the partisans in the Lithuanian forests is recounted.
The Blumsteins eventually married in France and later emigrated to the U.S. They are both Chemistry Professors Emeriti at University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and have published widely in science.

Learn to Play Social Bridge

For anyone who has thought about, been afraid of, or been intrigued by the game of bridge, this workshop on Social Bridge by Sam Seicol will explicate the game. The program will be held in Meeting Room A on Wednesday, August 11, 7:00PM.
Social bridge is a stimulating way to share time with friends. It emphasizes communication and cooperation more than competition. This program will give an introduction to the game and will address common misconceptions, the culture of bridge in America from the 1950's through the present and current research on health benefits.
Seicol teaches at the Boston Center for Adult Education and coaches private groups with students of all ages.

Green Decade Talk

The Green Decade Coalition will present a talk by indoor air quality expert and author Jeff May at the Library on Tuesday, July 13, 7:00PM. As an air quality investigator and president of a home inspection company, May has spent his career helping people identify what’s causing their inexplicable health problems, linking environmental factors to conditions like allergies and asthma. At this talk he will demystify mold and other indoor pollutants and allergens and provide guidelines for protecting our health and homes, by choosing the right professional for diagnosis and safe clean-up. May is author of My House is Killing Me! The Home Guide for Families with Allergies and Asthma and co-author with Connie May of the recently published The Mold Survival Guide: For your Home and for your Health. A limited number of these books will be available for purchase at the talk. Further information about Green Decade may be found at www.greendecade.org.

Computer Classes

Gain your independence! Learn a computer skill at one of our free, one session, hands-on classes this summer. Stop by a Reference Desk to sign up or call 617-796-1380.

Booklists Available

Looking for a good book to read or conducting research in a particular area? The Reference Department has compiled many booklists in a variety of subjects: African Americans in American Life, College Admissions, Books for Modern Parents, Buddhism, Day Trips, Gardening Guides, Rise and Fall of Saddam Hussein, Retirement and much more. Ask a Reference librarian at the YA Desk on the second floor for help in locating a list.

Garden City Cafe, Too!

The cafe we've all been waiting for has arrived at the Library in its cheerful location off the art gallery. Stop by for a muffin or a great cup of coffee in the morning or a satisfying lunch later in the day.

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MORNING PROGRAMS AT THE LIBRARY

	Newton Corner's book group will discuss When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka on Friday, July 30 and Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea on Friday, August 27 - both at 10:30AM at Evans Park at Newton Corner.
	+At the Waban branch, the book group will discuss Where the Light Remains by Hayden Gabriel on Wednesday, July 28 and on Wednesday, August 25 will discuss Raising Fences: a Black Man's Love Story by Michael Datcher - both at 10:30AM.

Consider a Gift to the Library

Please help supplement our municipal funding and contribute towards the purchase of books, audio/visual materials or equipment. Send your check, payable to the Trustees, to: Development Office, Newton Free Library, 330 Homer Street, Newton, MA 02459. For further information, call 965-7702. Thank you.

TO OUR CONCERT GOERS:

Please be considerate of the performer today as well as your fellow audience members and refrain from leaving the auditorium during a piece of music. If you have small children with you, please sit in the back rows. If you leave the auditorium between pieces, please close the door quietly behind you and wait to re-enter after a musical piece. Also, if you have a cellphone, please shut if off. Thank you.

PLEASE DON'T SAVE SEATS!

When attending a Sunday after-noon concert, please do not save more than one seat as this deprives others of attending the concert. The rule is first come, first served.

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