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Calendar Archives |
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more information on any of the Library events,
please call the Library at (617) 796-1360 |
Unless noted otherwise, all events take place at the Library's Main Branch.
All events are free and open to the public.
The Library is handicapped accessible. For special assistance when attending programs, call 796-1410 during business hours and 796-1360 evenings and weekends.
To view a previous calendar, click here to view the Archives. (Available from October 2004.) |
| Art Exhibits |
| 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
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| ART EXHIBITION INFORMATION
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.
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| GALLERY/ NOVEMBER |
Jing-Hua Gao Dalia: Brush Magic
December 2 - 29
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Dwelling In Wisteria
Fragrance |
Dalia’s delicate, ethereal paintings blend a traditional Eastern artistic approach with a freer Western style. This dialogue between the two cultures reflects the development of her own life which started in Taiwan, but now has shifted to America, where she lives northwest of Boston. Although a casual viewer may not easily discern the Western/contemporary influence in her classically structured works, her incorporation of the free use of color, a sense of airiness and a depth of perspective enliven and expand the concept of traditional brush stroke painting.
Dalia believes in the “mystical wonder of our natural world,” expressed in the majesty of grand vistas: a rushing waterfall or view of a wide silver river below the cliffs. Other works come in close to capture the clean outlines of red headed herons
by the shore, sparrows twittering in green bamboo branches, yellow roses growing on the vine. Her use of small figures - birds, butterflies, distant boats or people - reinforces our intimate relationship to nature. Her choice of poetic titles reveals her feelings about this living world and our place in it: “Moonlight and the Snow Falling on a Solitary Boatman,” or “Plum Blossom Stream in the Land of the Immortals.”
Dalia is the daughter of one of Taiwan’s most prominent artists, Gao Yi-hung. Her work has been displayed in the great exhibition halls of Taiwan, as well as in Hawaii, New York (Lincoln Center and Soho Art Museum), Washington, DC (Library of Congress) and locally by the Copley Society, Francesca Anderson Fine Art in Lexington, Concord Art Association, DeCordova Museum and many other places. She has been a member of the Poets, Painters & Calligraphers Assoc. of the Republic of China and is cur-rently a member of the Copley Society. A guest lecturer at Yale and Vassar, she has taught at the DeCordova Museum, Copley Society and other venues.
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| MAIN HALL / NOVEMBER |
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Main Hall
Meg Birnbaum: Botanical Regenerations
December 2 - 29
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White |
Birnbaum’s compositions are striking in their simplicity. In black and white images, these common natural forms: buds, pods, shells - are quiet beauties when taken out of context and lit against a dark background.
“I am interested in capturing on film a temporal poignancy of the continuing biological cycle – the time between fruition and regeneration,” Birnbaum says. Her roots, leaves and nuts are just past the cusp of ripeness, sometimes brittle, on the trajectory toward decay, with death nowhere in sight – still a surprise over the horizon.
A graphic designer by trade, her photographs are meticulously composed. In “Protea,” the central nub of a flower seems to float toward the surface while its wispy trendrils swim behind like tentacles. “Still Life #2” features two elegant leaves, one arching protectively over three cleft nuts while “Formation” calls attention to the perfect arrangement of seven dried petals of a cedar rose pinecone on a slab of rock, looking much like falling parachutes.
Birnbaum has exhibited and won prizes at many juried shows and competitions, among them the national show at Fitton Center for the Creative Arts in Ohio (first place award), the Bosque Conservatory annual photography competition in Texas, Brush Gallery in Lowell (third place prize), Art of the Northwest Competition at Nicolet College, Wisconsin (photograph purchased by college for permanent collection) and a Cambridge Art Association national show. She has worked as a graphic designer specializing in magazines, as founding art director of Cook’s Illustrated and as art director during the redesign of The American Prospect. She is a member of the Photographic Resource Center at B.U., the Center for Photography at Woodstock and the Texas Photographic Society.
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| Clubs |
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.
If you like discussing
literature, e-mail bpurcell@ci.newton.ma.us to find out more about our Jewish
Literature discussion series this winter.
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African
Literatures Discussion Group |
Led by Anne Serafin, this group explores the rich variety of writings from Africa. The group meets on the third Wednesday of the month at 7:30PM in Meeting Room A. Meeting Date: December 15: Land of a Thousand Hills, by Rosamond Carr. For further information, call 527-1072.
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Children's
Book Writers Group |
Meetings are held 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, December 6 or Wednesday, December 22.
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Contemporary
Books Discussion Group |
Meetings are held the first Wednesday of the month, 7:30PM, in Meeting Room A. Participants should read works in advance. Group coordinator: Marilyn Miller. Meeting Dates: December 1: Embers by Sandor Marai; January 5: The Wife by Meg Wolitzer.
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New! Graphic Novels Discussion Group |
| Participants discuss new graphic novels, related fiction/non-fiction, movies, what's new in the Library's holdings and what's the best way to find materials using the online catalog. Leader is Daniel Dern. The group meets on the third Tuesday of the month at 7:30PM in Meeting Room A. Meeting Date: Tuesday, December 21. Bring a favorite recently-published graphic novel to share.
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Great
Books Discussion Group |
Meetings are held on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:15PM in Meeting Room A. Members read books from the Great Books Foundation (available at the Library). Meeting Date: December 14: Concerning the Division of Labor by Adam Smith.
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Newton
Camera Club |
Meetings are held at 7:30PM usually on the second and fourth Mondays of the month at the Nonantum branch. Group coordinator: John Pruente: (603) 315-9735 or www.newtoncameraclub.org. Meeting Date: December 13: An Introduction to the Digital Workflow by Marshall Goff. |
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Parents of Children Living Abroad |
This group will discuss common issues and concerns about visiting and communicating with grown children who live abroad. Bring pictures! Coordinated by Library trustee Joan Harrington, the group will meet the third Wednesday of the month from 4 - 5:00PM in Meeting Room A. Meeting Date: December 15. For further information, call 617-969-5733. |
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Sequences:
Women Tell Our Stories Group |
In this women's workshop, participants read, discuss and write about literature by women. The group meets the second Wednesday of each month from 10 - 11:30AM in Meeting Room A. Leader: Robin Mayer Stein. Meeting Date: December 8. |
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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. Leader is Michael Kaufman. Pre-registration is required: call coordinator Cynthia Hurley at 617-965-4251. The group usually meets the first Tuesday of the month, 7:00PM. Meeting Date: December 14, this month in the Café.
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Short
Story Discussion Group |
Meetings are held on the second Monday of the month at 7:30PM in Meeting Room A. Group co-leaders are Mary Lanigan and Barbara McGinley. For further information, call 527-1505. Meeting Date: December 13: "Shamengwa" by Louise Erdrich and "The Anointed" by Kathleen Hill. |
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Singing
Group |
This group will meet again in January. |
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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 Date: December 18. |
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| Concerts |
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concerts are free and open to the public. For directions to the Library,
please click here. |
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Join storyteller and musician John Porcino for a Winter Wonderland concert of playful stories and songs that celebrate winter's hidden light and the diversity of the holidays. Geared for children 4+ and their families, the program will take place on Sunday, December 5, at 2:00PM and is sponsored by the Friends of the Library.
Porcino gives approximately 250 performances and workshops each year. His publications include the book Spinning Tales: Weaving Hope and the recently released recording "A Heck of a Way to Stay Warm: Stories and Songs that Kindle Winter's Hidden Light." He is a former classroom teacher and youth camp director. |
Library Hosts
Concert Version of
"The Nutcracker Suite"
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The Library will present
The Story of the
Nutcracker Suite with
Music by Tchaikovsky at
a holiday concert by
pianist Alfred Watson on
Sunday, December 12, at
2:00PM. The program is
geared for adults and children 8+. Seating is limited.
Watson will perform musical selections from the famous ballet interspersed with a description of each scene as well as insights about the composer and his work. His commentary will include stories about the creation of the ballet, when and where it was first performed, what new instruments were used, how the Russian government influenced the concept of the dances and other unusual facts.
Watson has performed at Carnegie Recital Hall and in many other concert halls in New York, New Jersey and along the East Coast. His tour of Poland included the honor of performing in the home of Frederick Chopin during the Chopin Festival. He returned to Krakow and Warsaw by special request this year to premiere his latest compositions; other recent appearances included a performance in Bermuda. A specialist in Chopin and other Romantic composers, he performed at the Library in 2001. He has recorded original piano pieces on the CD “Romantic Reflections” as well as his own arrangements of patriotic songs on “America.”
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Carthage Consort Gives Early Music Concert |
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The Carthage Consort, a trio for viola da gamba composed of Emily Walhout, Jane Hershey and Laura Jeppesen, will perform an Early Music concert at the Library on Sunday, December 26, 2:00PM. The program will feature Bach's Suite in C for cello, played on cello by Walhout, and music from 17th-century England, in particular the sonorous fantasias of John Coprario and the extravagant works of his student William Lawes.
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The concert is sponsored by Matthew Scott, Rebecca Scott Powell, Monica Staley and Duncan Scott in honor of their mother Duscha Scott Weisskopf. Seating is limited. The Consort is composed of three of Boston’s preeminent players of the viola da gamba who appear frequently in Boston’s major performing venues. Their expertise spans the breadth of the history of the viola da gamba. Next March the trio will perform the musical score for the staged production of Marlowe’s “Dido, Queen of Carthage” at the American Repertory Theater.
Hershey has toured and recorded with the Boston Camerata; with the trio Charivary, she has been a frequent guest at the Museum of Fine Arts and in other early music series around the country. As a violone player, she has played with the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra, Monadnock Music, the Santa Fe Baroque Orchestra, and the Arcadia Players.
Jeppesen has performed with The Boston Museum Trio and Charivary, Handel and Haydn Society, Boston Baroque, Aston Magna, and The Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra. She has appeared in music festivals and concerts throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia and Japan with a number of early-music ensembles and has been a soloist under conductors Christopher Hogwood, Martin Pearlman, Edo de Waart, Grant Llewellyn and Seiji Ozawa.
Walhout is a member of La Luna, and for 17 years was a member of the King’s Noyse. She led the bass section of the opera orchestra for the last three Boston Early Music Festivals, and has performed with Seattle Baroque, Portland Baroque, New York Collegium, and Trinity Consort in Oregon. She has toured as a chamber musician throughout North America and Europe. |
| Jazz up Your New Year's Weekend |
 "You can not help but be moved
by his performance..."
Cadence |
Jazz pianist Eyran Katsenelenbogen will return to the Library for a concert of standards from Ellington, Monk and Brubeck to jazz renditions of Israeli folk songs on Sunday, January 2, at 2:00PM.
Recipient of the ASCAP Plus Award for the years 2002 - 2005, Katsenelenbogen has served on the faculty of the New England Conservatory since 1996. A classically trained pianist with a “unique jazz style,”
he has performed by invitation in concert and on radio in Europe, the Middle East and the U.S., including the Library. His 2005 CD & DVD tour includes the Jazz & Blues Festival in Israel, Cristofori, Amsterdam and a faculty concert at NEC. As an innovative improvisational jazz artist, his recordings on several labels have garnered rave reviews.
Katsenelenbogen has pioneered techniques for teaching contemporary music performance to autistic children and students with diverse needs. His innovative work with his student Matthew Savage has been endorsed by the Autism Society of America and featured in national media. |
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| Lectures |
Jewish Mystical Literature Group Forms |
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The Library will host a five part reading and discussion series: "Let's Talk About It: Jewish Literature - Identity and Imagination" this winter. Led by Jewish literary scholar Susanne Klingenstein, Ph.D., the series will focus on "Demons, Golems and Dybbuks: Monsters of the Jewish Literary Imagination." Within an allegorical framework, the books probe psychological and political themes, juxtaposing the worlds of tradition vs. modernity, mysticism vs. law as the individual struggles to reinterpret his/her identity.
The Library is one of 200 libraries nationwide receiving grants to host the series developed by Nextbook and the American Library Association.
Texts to be discussed are: S. Ansky's The Dybbuk, I.B. Singer's Satan in Goray, Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Cynthia Ozick's The Puttermesser Papers and Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Summaries of the works can be found at: http://nextbook.org/ala/rl_demons.html.
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Klingenstein has taught European and Jewish literature at M.I.T. for the past ten years and published widely on Jewish American literature. Other Jewish literature teaching engagements include universities such as Harvard and the Boston Synagogue.
The group will begin January 13, 7:00PM and continue with meetings two weeks apart. Participation is limited to the first 25 registrants. Books will be made available through the Library. Those who register should be prepared to make a commitment to the full series.
For more information or to register, please call 617-796-1411 or e-mail: bpurcell@ci.newton.ma.us
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David Thomas Presents "Ho Chi Minh: A Portrait" |
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Artist C. David Thomas will speak on his book Ho Chi Minh: A Portrait at the Library on Monday, December 6, 7:30PM.
This beautifully designed book combines Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh’s own voice with text about his revolutionary life in a unique presentation. Strikingly conceived by Thomas, the volume introduces fresh materials as well as samples of Ho’s writing never before translated into English. Featuring historic photos and illustrations, the book also contains Ho’s poetry from his Prison Diary, which he composed while he was incarcerated in China in 1942-43, reproductions of important documents, a fictional diary and short memoirs by photographer Dinh Dang Dinh and Ho’s personal secretary Vu Ky. |
Charles Fenn provided the introduction, Lady Borton the text and translations. Fenn was a writer and decorated military officer who served in the OSS (a precursor to the CIA) in southern China. His Life of Ho was published in 1973. Borton is the author of two books on Viet Nam and is a representative for the American Friends Service Committee there. She lives in Hanoi.
Thomas is a Vietnam War veteran who returned to Vietnam for the first time in 1987 and has made countless trips since to conduct research and conduct programs of cultural exchange. He has curated three exhibitions: “As Seen by Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at the War,” “An Ocean Apart: Contemporary Vietnamese Artwork” and “Seven Pillars: The National Treasure Artists of Vietnam.” His own art is held in many museum collections and has been exhibited across the U.S. and in Vietnam. In 1999, he received Vietnam’s highest art award. His exhibit “An Artist’s Portrait of Ho Chi Minh” was displayed at the Library in 2000. |
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Children's Book Expert Offers Recommendations |
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With countless books being published every year, adults need expert guidance in choosing essential reading for children of all ages. Author Anita Silvey provides this guidance for parents, teachers and others in her engaging new book 100 Best Books for Children on which she will speak at the Library on Wednesday, December 8, at 7:00PM, followed by a booksigning. With her 35 years at the heart of children’s publishing, she is uniquely qualified to compile such an authoritative and informative list.
“Nothing in a child’s intellectual development offers more pleasure or more excitement than a good book,” writes Silvey in her introduction. “And nothing ensures the success of a child in society more than being read to from infancy through young adulthood.” Silvey distinguishes her guide from all others by selecting only 100 “best books,” making it possible to give readers a rich literary heritage during the childhood years. “These books motivate children to read,” she says of her selections. “They include the best stories, the most compelling characters and the most imaginative language.” Having spent much of her career behind the scenes as a publishing insider, Silvey has privileged knowledge about many of the titles she discusses and passes this information on to her readers, along with the contents and strengths of each book.
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Silvey estimates that she has read 125,000 children’s books, starting from childhood and continuing through her years as a reviewer and editor for The Horn Book Magazine and as a publisher of children’s books for Houghton Mifflin. She is the editor of Children’s Books and Their Creators.
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| "Back Street Images
of Cuba" Travelog |
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This past spring, seasoned photographer and adventure traveler Rob Holmes toured the fascinating country of Cuba. He hitchhiked and traveled via the old trains and buses for a unique perspective of our infamous neighbor. On Tuesday, December 28, 7:30PM, Holmes will show dramatic images of the old Spanish architecture and famous 1950’s automobiles of historic Havana at the Library. He will also show back street images of the salsa city of Santiago de Cuba, the charming children of Baracoa, the picturesque hillside town of Trinidad, the tobacco farmers of the West and much more.
Seattle resident Holmes has traveled, studied and worked in 35 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. He focuses on people, towns and landscapes in his photos, as he looks to capture ‘behind-the-scenes’ |
images of daily community life. His work has been published in several magazines, newspapers and websites. He has given slide shows at many venues nationwide, including one on “Mongolia and China” at the Library.
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| Booksale
The holiday season is here and the Friends of the Library invite you to start your shopping at the Library Book Sale at the Auburndale branch in early December. Choose from an extensive selection of books and videos that make great gifts for friends and family - or for yourself. Stop by Saturday, December 4, 10:00AM - 3:00PM and Sunday, December 5, Noon - 3:00PM. Proceeds benefit the Library.
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Computer Classes
Start off the new year with a class in PC Basics, the Internet, Search Engines or other computer skills. The Library offers one-session, hands-on classes every month. Call 617-796-1380 or stop by a Reference Desk to sign up.
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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 |
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Waban Book Group
The Waban book group will meet again in January. |
Newton Corner Book Group
The Newton Corner book group will meet again in January. |
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| For Your Information
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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 796-1400. Thank you.
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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 afternoon 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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