Newton Art Association Show
July 1 - 29

Mia Scheffey: Fire Drawings
August 2 - 30

This group will resume in the fall.

This group will resume in the fall.

Pianist Shuann Chai will return to the Library for a concert of music by Schubert, Chopin and Mendelssohn on Monday, July 10, 7:30PM.

This “graceful virtuoso” is known for her “expressive musicality” (Piano World Forum) which she displays in varied concert repertoire. Her recent performances include recitals at St Paul’s Church of Covent Garden, London, the Frederick Historical Piano Collection Concert Series in Ashburnham, a 5-concert tour with the MiN Ensemble of Norway, and a concert on an 1816 Broadwood at the Cobbe Collection in Surrey, England. She has been heard across the globe, from Beijing to Kiev and has also been featured in live radio broadcasts on WGBH radio (with cellist Pieter Wispelwey), NPR and Radio-Canada.

Currently Chai is completing a Ph.D in Musicology at Brandeis University, where she was awarded the H.M. Remis Fellowship as well as the Gershwin Foundation Prize.

Pianist Rob Prester will present a concert of works by Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Liszt and an original composition at the Library, Wednesday, July 12, at 7:30PM.

Prester is known as a jazz and classical performer, composer and arranger. He has performed as pianist in several Pops concerts with the Honolulu Symphony and has given recitals from Maine to Florida. His piano sonata was recently premiered at the International Festival of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.

Performances in jazz festivals, cruise ship bands and corporate tours have taken him to Europe, the Middle East, Asia and South America. Two years ago, he played a 4-hand piano concert with his mother at the Library.

The Rob Prester Group performs his original music at jazz festivals and other venues across the country. Their first recording, “Trillium,” was nominated for the Grammy Awards quarter-finals. Their newest recording, “Complex Carbohydrates,” presents Prester’s jazz and Latin-jazz works.

The Aurora Duo, composed of Loren Pearson, viola/violin, and Kevin McGinty, piano, will perform a program of Hungarian folk and gypsy-influenced music and other Eastern European works by Bartok, Sarasate, Dvorak and Weber at the Library on Wednesday, July 19, at 7:00PM.

Pearson has performed with many orchestras in Boston and the New England area including the Hartford Symphony and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She has toured extensively throughout Europe with distinguished orchestras from Germany. She serves on the faculty of Milton Academy and often performs with husband McGinty.

McGinty has performed in numerous concert halls as a recitalist, accompanist and chamber musician including concerti with the Boston Pops, Brookline Symphony Orchestra, Hillsdale (Michigan) Orchestra and Central Massachusetts Symphony Orchestra at Worcester’s Mechanics Hall. He has performed on WGBH and WERS radio stations as well as on WICN

and WCUW in Worcester. He teaches piano privately as well as at All Newton Music School and at M.I.T. Department of Music and Theater Arts.

On their debut album, Wherever You Go, Sweet Wednesday takes listeners traveling across the country to meet such characters as a grandmother with a secret crush on James Bond, a traveling dog and some rats named Grumpy, Sleepy and Sister Heartache. The CD also features members of the Swinging Steaks, Steve Mayone and Seth Connelly.

The only group from Boston chosen to perform at the 2002 National Flute Association in Washington, D.C., Willow has premiered works by Eun Jung Choi, Thad Jones, Sonny Burnette and others. Pioneering repertoire for flute ensemble, Willow has commissioned works from a number of composers, and produces its own arrangements for pieces as varied as Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 and folk music from Romania and Venezuela.

Performances include the National Flute Association Convention in Atlanta, the Greater Boston Flute Association Flute Fair, the Longy School of Music Bach’s Lunch Series, South Station Concert Series and Old West Church in Boston. Last January, Willow made headlines by producing a concert in Arlington with the largest number of flutists ever assembled for a performance: more than 30 flute players joined their ensemble to perform a concert that included Tallis’ “Spem in Allium” and Heiss’ “Mosaics.”

Jack Nusan Porter will present a talk on The Nature of Evil and his newly published book The Genocidal Mind: Sociological and Sexual Perspectives on Tuesday, July 18, 7:30PM, followed by a booksigning.

The Genocidal Mind offers unique and under-explored analyses of the Holocaust and the phenomenon of 20th century genocide within a sociological framework. With reference to contemporary scholarly work and using the latest in social structural, psychoanalytical, post-modern, chaos and uncertainty theory, Porter attempts to explain why people dehumanize and kill innocent people. The author also probes the deviant, sexual side of the Nazi party, including the mind of Adolf Hitler.

Newton resident Porter has been a sociologist and social activist for 40 years. The former vice-president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, he edited one of the first anthologies in the field, Genocide and Human Rights, and was a contributing editor to the Encyclopedia of Genocide, on which he spoke previously at the Library. The founder of the Journal of the History of Sociology, he is the author or editor of more than 30 books and dozens of articles and essays on the sociology of Jewry and of the Holocaust. Porter was the recipient of the Distinguished Scholarly Career Award from the American Sociological Association, History of Sociology section, in 2004.

Do you enjoy solving crosswords and want to know more about how they are made? Crossword constructor William Johnston will offer a look at the elements of the puzzle maker’s craft, including developing a theme, creating a grid, filling it with words, writing clever clues and submitting puzzles for publication on Wednesday, August 16, at 7:00PM at the Library. The evening is geared for adults and teenagers 12 and up.

Handouts will be provided that include examples of puzzle themes, grid symmetries, clue-writing tips and recommendations about software, books and Internet sites related to crosswords.

Bring a pencil and be ready to try some mini-activities.

Johnston has constructed crosswords that have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Herald. He is the host of the NYT crosswords web forum.