The Luminous Landscape by
Charyl Weissbach, January 3-30

African Literatures Discussion Group, led by Anne Serafin, explores the rich variety of writings from Africa. Info call: 617-527-1072. Next meeting: Wednesday, January 16, Room A, 7:30 pm, to read Mukiwa – a memoir by Peter Godwin from South Africa.

Children’s Book Writer’s Groups are for writers who have work in progress. Pre-registration required. Maria Gianferrari (781-891-0153) leads the group that meets on the first Monday of the month at 7:00 pm in Room A. Next meeting: Monday, January 7. Karen Day (617-244-4830) leads the group that meets on the 4th Wednesday of the month at 7:00 pm in Room A. Next meeting: Wednesday, January 23.

Commonwealth Book Club focuses on books from the U. K. and former colonies. Info contact: Chris Wangler at cwangler@minlib.net or 781-588-0149. Next meeting: Tuesday, January 15, at 7:30 pm in Room B to discuss The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar.

Contemporary Books Discussion Group

Contemporary Books Discussion Group. Info call: Marilyn Miller 617-332-4225. Next meeting: Wednesday, January 2 at 7:30 pm, Room A to discuss The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies.


Contemporary Books 2007 - 2008 Reading List

Great Books Discussion Group reads books or selected excerpts, some published by the Great Books Foundation. Some are available at the Library. Info call: Ruth Greene at 617-527-4143. Next meeting: Tuesday, January 8 at 7:15 pm, Room A, to discuss, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (from GBF publication Series 4, Vol 1.) by Gibbon.

Newton Camera Club meets on the 2nd and 4th Mondays of each month at 7:30 pm at the Nonantum Branch to share and discuss photography. For more information, www.newtoncameraclub.org.

Sequences: Women Tell Our Stories. Led by Robin Mayer Stein this is a supportive, creative group
that meets to read fiction, essays or poetry and discuss and write responses to the material Next meeting: Wednesday, January 16, 10:00 am Room A.

Short Fiction Writing Group is a workshop geared for published writers and those actively pursuing publication. Pre-registration is required, call 617-332-3347. Next meeting: Tuesday, January 8, 7:00 pm, Room B.

Short Story Discussion Group co-leaders are Mary Lanigan (617-527-1505) and Barbara McGinley. Next meeting: Monday, January 14, 7:30 pm, Room A. They will discuss Cherubs by Justine Dymond from The O. Henry Prize Short Stories 2007 and Once the Shore by Paul Yoon, from the The Best American Short Stories of 2006.

Singing Group is for singers of all levels who enjoy singing classical and popular music. Info call: Miriam Simen at 617-244-6705. Next Meeting: Saturday, January 12 at noon in the Auditorium.

Women in Career Transition. Led by career counselor Joyce Picard, this group, in its third year, provides sharing and information for women in career transition. Next meeting: Tuesday, January 15, 7:30 pm, Room A.

Flutists Alan Weiss and Sarah Kelly, Boston Symphony cellist Mihail Jojatu, oboist Ann Rosandich, and pianist Deborah Emery are The Piedmont Chamber Players. They will give a concert on Sunday January 6, 2008 at 2:00 pm at the Newton Free Library. The performance will include works of Telemann, Poulenc, Haydn, Doppler, and Taktakishvili. Ann Rosandich has performed with several Boston area orchestras and on WGBH-FM Boston radio. She currently teaches at the All-Newton Music School.

Alan Weiss has performed with many noted ensembles including the Boston Pops Orchestra. He works for the prestigious William S. Haynes Company of Boston, makers of handmade flutes since 1888, where he is currently the Artist-in-Residence.

Sarah Kelly is currently the Manager of the William S. Haynes Flute Company and will make her Boston debut in this performance. She has written an in-depth thesis, The Musician's Body, dealing with injury prevention, and physical and psychological approach to the instrument. Mihail Jojatu is a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and currently occupies the Sandra and David Bakalar Chair. He has been a concerto soloist with many ensembles and is the recipient of numerous awards.

Deborah DeWolf Emery has served as a pianist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and as a member of several chamber ensembles in New England.

 

Russian-born pianist Marianna Rashkovetsky has beguiled both critics and audiences with her vivacious and authoritative performances in Europe and the U. S. She will perform on Sunday, January 13 at 2:00 pm.

Ms. Rashkovetsky is a musical descendant of Heinrich Neuhaus, a giant of Russian piano pedagogy. She earned her masters at Moscow’s Gnessin Academy of Music. In 1990, she immigrated to the United States where she founded the Russian-American Music Association (RAMA), a non-profit organization which continues to work toward preserving the traditions of Russian musical pedagogy and performance, and to facilitate communication between American and Russian musicians by sponsoring concerts, workshops, and a competition for young people.

Ms. Rashkovetsky has recorded privately and for the Americus and Angelok labels. She teaches private students at her piano studio and also serves on the faculty of the Indian Hill Music Center in Littleton, Mass.

Cambridge Madrigal Singers offers exciting and eclectic concert programs. Join them on Thursday, January 17 at 7:00 pm for a choral tribute marking the centennial anniversary of the MacDowell Colony. Since its founding in 1907 by Edward and Marian MacDowell, thousands of artists have worked and created at the Colony, including authors, playwrights and composers, such as Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein.

Under the direction of Raymond E. Fahener, Cambridge Madrigal Singers has been the recipient of awards and grants, including a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, administered by the Newton Cultural Council, for this performance. They have performed throughout the Boston area, in Europe and have been featured on area radio broadcasts.

Pianist Igor Lovchinsky has performed in numerous notable locations both in the U. S. and abroad including the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Auditorium. He will give a concert at 2:00 pm on Sunday, January 20.

With a repertoire ranging from the Renaissance to the 21st century, Mr. Lovchinsky is a multi-faceted performer whose innovative programs - often combining the standard repertoire with jazz and popular music - reflect his diverse musical interests. Typically, Lovchinsky speaks to the audience at his recitals, engaging both the seasoned and the lay listeners. Composer Earl Wild produced the young pianist’s debut disc on the composer’s label, Ivory Classics, which was released in fall ‘07.

 

Bryan Eyberg has been playing the piano since the age of seven. He has appeared numerous times on Iowa Public Television, and was a finalist in the Terrace Hill Endowment for the Arts Piano Competition in 1991. He also performed the Grieg A minor Piano Concerto with the Fort Dodge Symphony. Mr. Eyberg studied piano with Anton Nel at the University of

Michigan School of Music where he received his Master's Degree in Piano Performance. While there he also studied composition and vocal accompanying. Mr. Eyberg has performed in numerous local concerts and currently teaches in the Boston area. He will give a concert of Bach, Rachmaninoff, Ravel and Chopin at Tuesday, January 22 at 7:30 pm.

Violinist Hyun-Jung Lee will present a concert of works by Beethoven, Chausson and Baber, accompanied by pianist Keun-Young Sung, on Sunday, January 27 at 2:00 pm.

Born in Korea, Hyun-Jung Lee began playing violin at the age of ten. She won numerous competitions in her native country and studied with Soo-Young Yoon. She holds master degree from University of North Texas. She has appeared as a soloist with the Baroque Orchestra at University of North Texas and has had many solo and chamber recitals in both in the U. S and abroad.

To mark the release of the 25th anniversary edition of his book, The Gift, Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, Boston native Lewis Hyde will give an author talk on Thursday, January 10 at 7:00 pm. The Gift is an inquiry into the situation of creative artists in a commercial society and is a brilliantly argued defense of the importance of creativity and of its value in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities. Public institutions have been encouraged to think of themselves as private businesses, and thus the essence of an artistic pursuit is diminished. Art, Hyde argues, is a gift, not a product to be purchased or sold. The Gift is indispensable for anyone who exists in an artistic realm and has been cherished by writers, artists, musicians, and thinkers alike.

Lewis Hyde's poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals, including the Kenyon Review, the American Poetry Review, the Paris Review, and the Nation. Hyde has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Lannan Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1991 he was made a MacArthur Fellow. Hyde taught writing at Harvard University and has taught at Kenyon College since 1989 where he is currently the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing.

In a program entitled, A Family View: The Cancer Challenge Touches All, facilitator Harriet Berman will examine the impact on children of a parent's cancer diagnosis. The program will be held on Tuesday, January 15 at 7:00 pm and will explore the impact of learning about a parent's cancer across the age spectrum as well as the resources available to support a family dealing with the on-going stress of cancer treatment.

Harriet Berman, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist and 9 year survivor of breast cancer, is the Executive Vice President for Clinical Programs at The Wellness Community – Greater Boston, which provides free support, stress management and educational services to people with cancer and their families.

 

We all know that doctors accept gifts from drug companies, ranging from pens and coffee mugs to free vacations at luxurious resorts. But as the former Editor-in-Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine reveals in this shocking expose, these innocuous-seeming gifts are just the tip of an iceberg that is distorting the practice of medicine and jeopardizing the health of millions of Americans today. Join Dr. Jerome Kassirer for an author talk on Wednesday, January 16 at 7:00 pm.

In On the Take, Dr. Jerome Kassirer offers an unsettling look at the pervasive payoffs that physicians take from big drug companies and other medical suppliers, arguing that the billion-dollar onslaught of industry money has deflected many physicians' moral compasses and directly impacted the everyday care we receive from the doctors and institutions we trust most. Underscored by countless chilling untold stories, the book illuminates the financial connections between the wealthy companies that make drugs and the doctors who prescribe them. A brilliant diagnosis of an epidemic of greed, On the Take offers insight into how we can cure the medical profession and restore our trust in doctors and hospitals.

Is the availability of clean water a human right for all people, or is it a commodity to be bought, sold, and traded in a global marketplace? Join us for a screening of the award-winning documentary Thirst and a talk by Deborah Lapidus of Corporate Accountability International’s Think Outside the Bottle Campaign at 7:00 pm on Monday, January 28. This is the first program in the Green Decade Coalition’s 2008 Environmental Speaker Series.

Thirst tells the stories of communities in Bolivia, India, and the United States that are asking fundamental questions about global water supplies. As the proliferation of bottled water damages our ecosystems, its marketing also erodes the long-held American value that communities should manage and control local water resources. If the public becomes increasingly conditioned to believe that drinking water is something purchased from a corporation in bottles, political and financial support for public water systems will continue to wane, further undermining the integrity of public water systems.

Facilitator Deborah Lapidus is a national organizer with Corporate Accountability International a membership organization that protects people by waging and winning campaigns that challenge irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions around the world. Ms. Lapidus will lead a discussion that promises to help you learn why you should start your New Year with a Pledge to Think Outside the Bottle and take the Pledge today at www.ThinkOutsidetheBottle.org.

Are you a writer in progress who is hungry for sound advice? Join Mark Kramer for a talk on Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide on Thursday, January 31 at 7:00 pm.

Kramer is a long time Newton resident and former writer-in-residence of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism at Harvard University. His book, Telling True Stories, draws its 100+ short, linked texts from the talks of many well-known nonfiction writers. Contributers include Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese and many talented journalists and essayists. The book has been widely adopted in writing courses across the country and over the past six months has often been the number one book about writing on Amazon.com.

Kramer was a professor of journalism at Boston University and writer-in-residence at Smith College. He has written many books and has also written for leading magazines and newspapers including the NY Times and National Geographic. Come prepared with your questions and writing problems for this interactive talk.

 

It’s not too early to dream of spring, so mark your calendars for the Newton Free Library’s annual Spring Fling gala event, Saturday, March 29, 2008, 7:00 pm, at the library. This library lovers’ evening will honor regional authors including co-authors Jody Adams and Ken Rivard, Joseph Finder, Rebecca Goldstein, Nathaniel Philbrick, Rishi Reddi, and David Allen Sibley. Enjoy conversations with the authors, a literary-themed silent auction, excellent food, and good music. You will have the opportunity to purchase the honorees’ books and have them personally signed by the author. Tickets go on sale in February. For more info, contact Devra Kiel Simon, Director of Development, 617-796-1407 or dsimon@minlib.net.