Keith James and Potentials Unlimited will present the lively, inspirational “Show of Strengths” at the Library on Sunday, September 11, at 2PM. This integrated performance troupe brings together professional and amateur musicians, actors and dancers with adult and teen performers who are challenged by developmental, physical and emotional special needs. Their performances are rousing and touching, celebrating diversity, non-violence and human potential.

Since 1993, Potentials Unlimited has presented concerts, shows and workshops to audiences throughout Massachusetts including the national ARC convention in Boston, and in New York. Some of their featured guests have included actor Chris Burke and country singers Jess Leary and Laura Darling. Audiences of all ages have enjoyed their performances at conferences, schools and community events. Their recordings include the CDs “Don’t Count me Out” and “From Your Shore.” Further information on Potentials Unlimited may be found on their website: www.potentialsunlimited.org.

The Boston Artists’ Ensemble will give a preview of its upcoming season at a concert at the Library on Sunday, September 18, 2:00PM. Artistic Director and cellist Jonathan Miller, violinist Sharan Leventhal and pianist Virginia Eskin will perform an all-Debussy program. Seating at the concert is limited.

Now in its 25th season, the Boston Artists Ensemble presents chamber concerts by internationally recognized musicians at Trinity Church in Newton.

Miller is a 33 year veteran of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Solo appearances include the Boston Pops, Hartford Symphony and the American Cello Congress at the invitation of Mstislav Rostropovitch. Currently a member of the renowned Gramercy Trio, he has also toured the country as a member of the New York String Sextet.

Acclaimed mezzo soprano Krista River and pianist Alison D’Amato will perform "Conversations: A Musical and Poetic Dialogue" between composer Toni Lester and poet Mary Pinard, featuring the premiere of “To Rivers.” The concert will take place at the Library on Sunday, September 25, at 2:00PM, followed by a discussion on the creative and collaborative process. Seating is limited.

Lester composes in a wide variety of idioms, including European-influenced art music, world music and jazz. She has composed for the theater, film, concerts, music festivals and liturgical settings. Among her many grants, commissions and residencies, is the 2003 National Composer’s Guild 1st place prize for her chamber ensemble piece, “Songs for My Mother.” She teaches at Babson College.

Pinard’s poems have been published widely in literary magazines. She teaches in the Arts and Humanities Division at Babson College and has taught as a poet in schools and libraries in Massachusetts and Vermont. She is also an active participant in Waterline, the Babson reading series for faculty creative writers.

River was recently described by the New York Times as possessing “a shimmering voice…with the virtuosity of a violinist and the expressivity of an actress.” Winner of the 2004 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, she has appeared as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Handel & Haydn Society, Emmanuel Music, Santa Fe Symphony and at the International Opera Festival in Rome.

D’Amato has been called “an expert pianist” by Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer. She is engaged in a wide variety of projects with Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Radius Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva, Florestan Recital Project and Opera Boston.

Coloratura soprano Galina Nikonovskaya, pianist Rosalia Shifrin and poet/translator Anatol Zukerman will perform in the Library’s Cultural Bridges program, an afternoon of Russian/English poetry and song. The event will take place on Sunday, October 2, at 2:00PM. Nikonovskaya will perform songs by Russian composers Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Tariverdiev, Tukhmanov and others with lyrics written by poets Pushkin, Lermontov, Block, Martinov and Bunin. Zukerman will read his translations of the pieces.

Nikonovskaya performed leading roles with the Moldavian National Opera and appeared in festivals with some of the former Soviet Union’s most renowned soloists. In the U.S. she has performed in “Hansel and Gretel” with the Boston Aria Guild, at New England Conservatory and at various halls in New York, Connecticut and Greater Boston.

Shifrin led an active career as a pianist in Russia and Eastern Europe before immigrating to the U.S. In the Boston area, she has performed at the Russian-American Festival, accompanied well-known vocalists as well as students in recitals and masterclasses at Boston universities.

Newton resident Zukerman is an award-winning poet and short story writer whose poems were recently published in the prestigious Russian poets anthology, We Cannot Predict the Future. A member of the American Literary Translators Association, he has recently prepared a manuscript, From Pushkin to Okudjava and a second book of his own bilingual poetry, Overpass. He is the organizer of the Library’s continuing Cultural Bridges program.

Tracy Kidder has an extraordinary talent for showing readers what it means to be human, and for telling the unadorned stories of people’s lives. With My Detachment, the Pulitzer Prize winning author writes for the first time about himself in a surprisingly honest, comic and moving memoir of the Vietnam War.

Hear Kidder speak on this new book at the Library on Wednesday, September 14, 7:30PM, followed by a booksigning with books from NewEngland Mobile Book Fair.

This unusual war story is an unromanticized portrait of a young man coming of age in a war that defined a generation. Kidder views himself from across more than three decades with merciless, often hilarious clarity. He has a fine eye for the absurdity of rear-echelon military life as well as for his own foibles and also for those rare moments of redeeming grace in the midst of lunacy and danger.

Described as a “master of the non-fiction narrative” by the Baltimore Sun, Kidder has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Award, among other literary prizes. The author of The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends, Home Town and Mountains Beyond Mountains, on which he spoke previously at the Library, he lives in Massachusetts and Maine.

 

Do you need help understanding the naturalization process? Legacy for Literacy is offering a class for intermediate ESL students who have applied for citizenship and are waiting for their interview appointment. The class will cover basic U.S. history and government. Students will also practice answering questions for the interview. The 8 sessions, beginning on September 15, will be held Thursday evenings at 7PM in the Trustees Room. The class is limited to 15 students. Pre-registration is required. If you are interested in attending, please call Susan Bécam, ESL/Literacy Program Coordinator, at 617-796-1364 or email:
legacyforliteracy@yahoo.com.

 

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston (JGSGB) will offer “A Taste of Jewish Family History Research” at the Library on Tuesday, September 20, at 7:00PM. All are welcome. Throughout the month of September, JGSGB will also mount an exhibit of genealogical resource materials in the Library display cases.

Led by Nancy Levin Arbeiter, CGRS, the lecture will touch on methods of genealogical research using sample documents. Contrary to popular belief, many records from “the old country” are available and Arbeiter will explain how to determine where one’s descendents came from, how to identify one’s original surname and to disprove family myths. Family history research explores more than just where one’s family lived in the past, but how they lived, when and how they got here, what they might have experienced on their trip to America and more.

Arbeiter is a professional genealogist specializing in Jewish family history research and immigration topics. In private research practice since 1991, she is the author of A Beginner’s Primer in U.S. Jewish Genealogical Research published in Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy. A seasoned lecturer, she has led workshops at many of the annual Jewish genealogical conferences in cities across the U.S. and Canada.

JGSGB is a non-profit organization of more than 400 members, formed in 1981. The Society develops and promotes the growth, study and exchange of ideas among all people interested in Jewish genealogical research and family history. More information may be found at: www.jgsgb.org.

 

Jewish Advocate writer Susie Davidson will speak on her new book: I Refused to Die: Stories of Boston Area Holocaust Survivors and Soldiers who Liberated the Concentration Camps of World War II at the Library on Wednesday, September 21, at 7:30PM.

Recipient of a 2004 Massachusetts Cultural Council/Brookline Arts Commission grant, the book contains nearly 30 personal stories recorded, annotated, edited, and in many cases written by Davidson. Included are essays by local Holocaust community leaders, poetry, articles, photos and area resources.

The book is published by Ibbetson Street Press on the 60th anniversary year of the Allied defeat of the Nazis, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the New England Holocaust Memorial and in recognition of the Liberators’ Monument in Boston as well as of the work of the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, based in Newton.

Davidson is a local journalist who has written for the Boston Sunday Globe, the TAB newspapers and music publications. As a poet, she has had three collections published and won the 2002 Cambridge Poetry Award for Best Political Poem.

 

The Library and the Newton History Museum at the Jackson Homestead begin a new three part Newton History Series this fall: Schooling Newton.

Susan Abele, Curator of Manuscripts and Photographs at the Museum will present this year’s first lecture in the annual series on Thursday, September 22, at 7:00PM in Druker Auditorium at the Library.

Abele’s lecture, “Building a High School for Newton, 1859-1973,” focuses on the history of schools and schooling from the early 19th through the mid-20th century.

Find out why the location for Newton’s first “pure high school” was controversial; how the school was finally built; when and how it changed over the years, both in its architecture and as a community institution; and how the earlier school buildings were ultimately replaced in the 1970s.

Historical information on the Newton schools is available in the Newton Collection (Special Collections Room) at the Library and the Newton History Museum.

 

The Library’s Legacy for Literacy program provides free tutoring services for adults of limited English proficiency. Currently, the number of student applicants far exceeds the number of volunteer tutors. Teaching Basic Reading and English as a Second Language is very rewarding work. No prior experience is necessary as tutoring workshops are offered at the Library. An Introductory Meeting for anyone interested in tutoring will be held Wednesday, September 28, at 7:00PM in the Trustees Room. For more information, contact Susan Bécam, ESL/Literacy Program Coordinator, at 617-796-1364 or send email to legacyforliteracy@yahoo.com. You may also visit us at www.newtonfreelibrary.net/Services/Literacy/literacy.htm.

 

Hurricane Voices Breast Cancer Foundation presents a talk on “How Books Can Help Children When Breast Cancer is Part of the Family” given by Joan Egasti Platt, MLS, on Thursday, September 29, at 7:00PM in Meeting Room A.

When a mother is diagnosed with breast cancer she wonders “How will I tell my children?” “How will this impact my family?” Children need support from parents in addressing their new reality both within the family and externally. Understanding of illness and disease differs for each child, as it does for each stage of cancer. This talk will explore the topic of using books to help communicate with children about a cancer diagnosis.

Platt is author of the annotated bibliography Family Reading List and will discuss several of the outstanding books for each age group in this List.

The presentation will be followed by a question and answer period. See http://www.hurricanevoices.org/list/index.htm for more information.

 

There are few figures more revered and respected in the field of technology than inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. His recent best-selling book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, explored the nature of life after machine and human intelligence begin to blur. In The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Kurzweil presents the next stage of his compelling view of the future: the merging of humans and machines. He will speak on this book, followed by a booksigning, at the Library on Thursday, September 29, at 7:30PM.

Kurzweil describes the Singularity as, “…a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.” It will "represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology... There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine nor between physical and virtual reality. If you wonder what will remain unequivocally human in such a world, it’s simply this quality: ours is the species that inherently seeks to extend its physical and mental reach beyond current limitations.”

According to Kurzweil, human aging will be reversed, world hunger and pollution will be solved. Our bodies will be transformed by nanotechnology, so that, for example, we will eventually be able to eliminate many of our organs and blood cells. Our brains will be able to be downloaded. The book considers the philosophical and social ramifications of such an enormous change. What will become of human consciousness, the question of identity, the meaning of death? While the concepts put forth in the book are both dramatic and controversial, they are also important and overwhelmingly optimistic.

Kurzweil is a prizewinning author and scientist. Recipient of the MIT-Lemelson Prize (the world’s largest for innovation) and inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame, he received the 1999 National Medal of Technology. He lives in Newton.