Spend your summer days with Greenwich Library this June. Sign up for the Library’s Adult Summer Reading program, plant a container garden, join a book club, watch a few films, and listen to a jazz concert. All this and more happening at Greenwich Library this summer.
Who says kids should have all the fun? Greenwich Library’s Adult Summer Reading Program is designed to encourage adult readers (18+) to read outside their comfort zones this summer. Complete at least five fun reading challenges between June 12 and August 14 for a chance to win. For every five challenges you complete, you are entered into a drawing for one of three grand prizes.
Challenges for Adult Summer Reading include borrowing a cookbook from the Library and trying a new recipe, reading a work of nonfiction, and watching a film or documentary on Kanopy. Submissions are only accepted from June 12 through August 14. The program is run concurrently with Greenwich Main Library, Byram Shubert Library, and Cos Cob Library. Visit our website at https://www.greenwichlibrary.org/adult-summer-reading/ for more information and to sign up.
A special musical event is happening on Thursday, June 10 at 7 p.m.! The Friends of Greenwich Library is hosting a special virtual night of jazz on Zoom, featuring the marvelous and up-and-coming Matt & Luke Marantz Quartet. The group includes an extremely talented roster of musicians, including Matt Maratz on saxophone, his brother Luke Marantz on piano, Rick Rosato on bass, and Allan Mednard on drums. Join the Friends for an amazing night of toe-tapping and finger-snapping jazz, featuring originally recorded jazz musical selections, followed by a live interview with the Matt & Luke Marantz Quartet and Nate Chinen, well-known music critic, reviewer, and jazz author. Registration for this program is available through the Library’s online calendar.
The Friends are also hosting two Friday Film Reel Talks this month, along with some fascinating and well-regarded speakers. Join the Friends to discuss the British film This Beautiful Fantastic (2016) on June 4 at 7 p.m. and hear from landscape designer and gardening author Jan Johnsen. On June 18 at 7:00 p.m., join us for a discussion of the heart-warming movie Miss Juneteenth (2020); guest speaker will be art curator, media studies educator and digital artist Millie Burns. We will be discussing this movie as well as the holiday of Juneteenth. Both films are available for viewing for free beforehand on the Library’s digital app Kanopy with a Greenwich Library card.
Check out the event lineup below for additional programs happening this month! The complete calendar of May programs can be found on the Library’s online calendar.
For the virtual programs below, register via the Library’s online calendar to receive attendee Zoom link and password before the event (unless otherwise noted).
Outdoor Container Gardening with Mary Jo Bridge (Cos Cob Library)
Wednesday, June 2, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Please join us for an in-person outdoor program with gardener Mary Jo Bridge who will show us how to plant different vegetables and herbs using containers!
VIRTUAL – Qi Gong (Cos Cob Library)
Thursday, June 3, 11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.
Join us for an interactive intro to Qi-Gong: mindful movement and breathing with Dana McAvity. Learn time-tested and research-proven techniques to help integrate, body, mind, and spirit through gentle movements, postures, and proper breathing. Benefits include stress reduction, improved sleep, strengthened immune system, balance and muscle tone. Please wear comfortable clothes and shoes. No previous experience is necessary.
VIRTUAL – Architectural Styles of Byram with Patricia Baiardi Kantorski (Byram Shubert Library)
Thursday, June 3, 7 – 8 p.m.
Patricia Bairdi Kantorski will give a talk on the architectural styles that represent the most popular styles of homes built in Byram from the earliest 17th-century by homesteaders to the 20th-century eclectic houses. An outline of the architectural characteristics typical for each style will be discussed. A map, including the address of existing Byram homes built in each style, will be available at the Library for anyone who wishes to go on a self-guided tour. This program is the premier event of a year-long celebration: Byram Shubert Library’s 90th Anniversary! Join us to honor the important role the Library has played in serving the Byram Community, bringing the community together, and promoting the cultural fabric of Western Greenwich.
VIRTUAL – Senior Chinese Book Discussion Group
Held two Fridays this month! June 4 & 18, 10 – 11 a.m.
Join us for this bimonthly book discussion group specifically for local senior Chinese residents who are interested in making new friends, understanding American culture, and discussing current events.
VIRTUAL – Friends Friday Film Reel Talk: This Beautiful Fantastic
Friday, June 4, 7 – 8 p.m.
Don’t miss a special presentation of Friday Friends Film Reel Talk Discussion as we discuss the film, This Beautiful Fantastic. The special guest for this discussion will be landscape designer and author Jan Johnsen, who will be joining us for a discussion of the movie and sharing her secrets to creating great and enchanting gardens, a feature of this movie. The film can be found on the streaming service Kanopy for free using a Greenwich Library card. Watch the movie from the comfort of your own home, and then join the Friends on Zoom to discuss this vibrant and through-provoking comedy. The film is about a reclusive young librarian who is an aspiring author. She makes an unlikely friendship with her cantankerous older neighbor after they are brought together by a neglected garden and she is forced to deal with to avoid eviction. This series is made possible by contributions from the Friends of Greenwich Library.
VIRTUAL – Chair Yoga with Kristin (Byram Shubert Library)
Tuesday, June 8, 4 – 5 p.m.
Join us for Chair Yoga and start to feel better today! Chair yoga is a 60-minute community class with breathing exercises and a series of movements designed to improve posture and balance, increase strength and flexibility, and relax the body and mind. Research shows that yoga increases bone density, facilitates weight loss, stabilizes blood pressure, improves range of motion, and reduces depression. There is no experience necessary for this class and all movements can be modified to suit your needs. This program is sponsored by Friends of the Byram Shubert Library.
VIRTUAL – New Yorker Stories Discussion Group (Cos Cob Library)
Tuesday, June 8, 5 – 6:30 p.m.
On the second Tuesday of the month, Cos Cob Library welcomes Susan Boyar, a long-time facilitator at both the Cos Cob and Greenwich Libraries, to guide us through a current New Yorker short story. Even though the stories are only three or four pages long, our animated discussions often carry on into the evening. Come join us! Registrants will receive the featured story by email at a future date.
VIRTUAL – Proust Group (Byram Shubert)
Thursday, June 10, 5 – 6:30 p.m.
Marcel Proust is regarded by many as the greatest writer of the 20th century. The complete Remembrance of Things Past will be discussed methodically page by page, chapter by chapter, led by Fereshteh Priou. This program in association with Alliance Française, Greenwich.
VIRTUAL: A Night of Jazz with Friends
Thursday, June 10, 7 – 8 p.m.
Don’t miss this special night of jazz, brought to you by the Friends of Greenwich Library, featuring the marvelous and up-and-coming Matt & Luke Marantz Quartet. This uber-talented lineup includes Matt Maratz on saxophone, Luke Marantz on piano, Rick Rosato on bass, and Allan Mednard on drums. Join the Friends for an amazing night of toe-tapping and finger-snapping jazz, featuring originally recorded jazz musical selections, along with a live talkback and interview with the Matt & Luke Marantz Quartet and Nate Chinen, well-known music critic, reviewer, and jazz studies author.
About Matt Marantz
Marantz is originally from Texas and got his start growing up in a musical family. He moved to New York City in 2004 and began a musical journey that has taken him as far away as The Middle East, Europe, and Asia for tours, and he has performed with Herbie Hancock, Michael Bublé, Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, and Jason Moran. His brother Luke is a pianist, composer, and photographer currently living in Brooklyn. His studies began at an early age with piano, voice, saxophone, and visual art. He attended the Booker T. Washington high school for the performing and visual arts and upon graduating moved to Boston to attend the New England Conservatory of Music.
About Rick Rosato
A native of Montreal, Rosato moved to New York City in 2007 to study at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City. He quickly became one of the most in-demand jazz bassists and maintains an international performing, recording, and teaching schedule. Rosato tours internationally and records with groups such as Gilad Hekselman, Stranahan/Zaleski/Rosato, Ben Van Gelder, David Kikoski, and Will Vinson. Drummer Allan Mednard was born and raised in Queens, New York. His early musical experiences involved New York City’s All-City High School Music program, Bayside High School’s Academy of Music, and Queens College’s Center for Preparatory Studies in the Music program. He has performed around the globe with ensembles led by Jeremy Pelt, Ben Allison, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Aaron Parks, Alix Ambroise, Le Boeuf Brothers, and many more.
About Nate Chinen
Nate Chinen has been writing about jazz for more than 20 years. He spent a dozen of them working as a critic for The New York Times and helmed a long-running column for JazzTimes. As Director of Editorial Content at WBGO, Chinen works with the multiplatform program Jazz Night in America and contributes a range of coverage to NPR Music. He is the author of Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century. His byline has also appeared in a range of national music publications, including DownBeat, Blender, and Vibe. For several years he was the jazz critic for Weekend America, a radio program syndicated by American Public Media. From 2003 to 2005, he covered jazz for the Village Voice. His work appears in Best Music Writing 2011 (Da Capo); Pop When the World Falls Apart: Music in the Shadow of Doubt (Duke University Press, 2012), and Miles Davis: The Complete Illustrated History (Voyageur Press, 2012).
VIRTUAL – Cloak and Dagger Book Club (Cos Cob Library)
Saturday, June 12, 1 – 2 p.m.
The Staff and Friends of Cos Cob Library invite mystery and crime lovers to their monthly book club. It is currently led by the lively members themselves. This month’s selection is The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville. Northern Ireland’s Troubles may be over, but peace has not erased the crimes of the past. Gerry Fegan, a former paramilitary contract killer, is haunted by the ghosts of the twelve people he slaughtered. Every night, at the point of losing his mind, he drowns their screams in drink. But it’s not enough. To appease the ghosts, Fegan is going to have to kill the men who gave him orders. From the greedy politicians to the corrupt security forces, the street thugs to the complacent bystanders who let it happen, all are called to account. But when Fegan’s vendetta threatens to derail a hard-won truce and destabilize the government, old comrades and enemies alike want him dead.
VIRTUAL: International Book Club (Byram Shubert Library)
Tuesday, June 15, 5 – 6 p.m.
Join the International Book Club in reading The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. The book is set on a remote island where things are disappeared. Birds, hats, roses all cease to exist as people wake up and they then have a short time to destroy any they still possess. In the time it’s like these things never existed at all. There are some people however who retain the ability to remember about them, there are also some who try and keep disappeared things. And it is the job of the Memory Police to track these people down and punish them. International Book Club is in association with Alliance Françoise, Greenwich.
VIRTUAL – Foreign Affairs Book Discussion Group
Tuesday, June 15, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
This month, the Foreign Affaird Book Discussion Group is talking about The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder by Sean McFate. In this book, McFate constructs ten rules for the future of military engagement and explains how to fight and win in an age of entropy and a global system very different from the past. War is timeless. Some things change—weapons, tactics, technology, leadership, objectives—but the propensity for humans to do battle does not. We are living in an age of Durable Disorder, a period of unrest created by numerous factors; the armed conflicts being waged has doubled since World War II and nearly half of the world’s countries are involved in some form of armed conflict. Don’t miss this fascinating discussion!
VIRTUAL – MoMA Talk & Tour – Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start
Thursday, June 17, 2 – 3 p.m.
Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start is a focused look at one of the most well-known and beloved artists of the 20th century through the lens of his relationship with MoMA. The exhibit is on view until August 7 and includes approximately 70 artworks paired with film, historical photographs, and other archival materials drawn from MoMA’s collection and augmented by key loans from the Calder Foundation, New York. Join us for a virtual tour of the collection followed by a live curatorial Q&A with Cara Manes, an Associate Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art. She works extensively on the ongoing presentations in the collection galleries and sculpture garden, as well as on temporary exhibitions. She holds degrees from Wellesley College and The City University of New York. This program is co-sponsored with The Flinn Gallery.
VIRTUAL – Fathers in Art History with Beth S. Gersh-Nesic Ph.D (Byram Shubert)
Thursday, June 17, 7 – 8 p.m.
In honor of Father’s Day, come learn and discuss how fathers are depicted in art with art historian Beth S. Gersh-Nesic. She is the director of the New York Arts Exchange, an arts education service that offers tours, lectures, and workshops in various venues, including museums, galleries, artists’ studios, and arts organizations. She currently teaches art history at Purchase College. Dr. Gersh-Nešić has published on Picasso, Cubism, and the art criticism of Picasso’s close friend, the poet André Salmon. Her specialty is 19th– and 20th-century modern and contemporary art.
VIRTUAL – Friends Friday Film Reel Talk: Miss Juneteenth
Friday, June 18, 7 – 8 p.m.
Don’t miss the Friday Friends Film Reel Talk Discussion as we discuss the film, Miss Juneteenth, found on the streaming service, Kanopy. Joining the Friends will be special guest Millie Burns, art curator, media studies educator and digital artist. We will discuss this movie and learn more about the actual celebration of Juneteenth, which takes place on June 19th and is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Miss Juneteenth is about a single mom and former pageant winner who enters her teen daughter in the local Miss Juneteenth Pageant in the hopes that a win and scholarship to college will bring her daughter success. Fifteen-year-old Kia has other plans in her dream to become a dancer. Access to Friends Friday Films virtual streaming is free to patrons with a Greenwich Library card using Kanopy. This series is made possible by contributions from the Friends of Greenwich Library.
VIRTUAL – Ancestor’s Series: Raising the Dead with David Lambert
Wednesday, June 23, 7 – 8 p.m.
When they survive, headstones can offer important clues to understanding the lives of those who came before us. Join the author of A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries and NEHGS Chief Genealogist David Allen Lambert to learn how these memorials can shed new light on your ancestor’s life—everything from the type of stone used, the carvings, the position of the family plot, and the burial documents left behind can provide you with information. Lambert has been on the staff of NEHGS since 1993 and is the organization’s Chief Genealogist. He is an internationally recognized speaker on the topics of genealogy and history and his expertise includes New England and Atlantic Canadian records of the 17th through 21st century; military records; DNA research; and Native American and African American genealogical research in New England. Lambert has published many articles in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, the New Hampshire Genealogical Record, Rhode Island Roots, The Mayflower Descendant, and American Ancestors magazine. David is an elected Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston and a life member of the New Hampshire Society of Cincinnati. He is also the tribal genealogist for the Massachuset-Punkapoag Indians of Massachusetts.
Outdoor Music Night – Gunsmoke: Country Music Live!
Thursday, June 24, 7 – 8 p.m.
Celebrate Byram Shubert Library’s 90th anniversary with an outdoor country concert with music from the 1930s to the present. This program will take place outside! Gunsmoke, Byram Shubert’s “resident” country music band, has been entertaining audiences at fairs, festivals, clubs, private parties, and concerts, with classic country, western swing, and rockabilly music for over 25 years. The Nashville recording artists have six albums and have performed on the world-famous Ernest Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree in Nashville, TN, following the Grand Ole Opry.
VIRTUAL – Homemade Meals Cooking Demo with Kevin (Byram Shubert)
Saturday, June 26, 10:30 – 11:30 a.m.
Follow Kevin preparing fun and easy homemade granola, mayonnaise, and egg salad.
This program is sponsored by Friends of the Byram Shubert Library.
VIRTUAL – Fiction Addiction Book Club
Monday, June 28, 6 – 7 p.m.
Join the Fiction Addiction Book Group virtually to discuss Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano. New members are always welcome! The book tells the story of 12-year-old Edward Adler, who boards a plane with his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured veteran returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor. Edward’s story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a part of himself has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery—one that will lead him to the answers to some of life’s most profound questions: When you’ve lost everything, how do you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other? How do you learn to feel safe again? How do you find meaning in your life? Dear Edward is at once a transcendent coming-of-age story, a multidimensional portrait of an unforgettable cast of characters, and a breathtaking illustration of all the ways a broken heart learns to love again.
VIRTUAL – Meditation and Breathing with Gail (Byram Shubert)
Tuesday, June 29, 5 – 6 p.m.
Come and enjoy essential meditation techniques that will help you be less stressed, embrace possibilities, and experience tranquility and joy.
Programs and services are made available to Library patrons at no charge through the support of the Greenwich Library Board of Trustees, through contributions by generous donors. For more information and on these and other programs, visit www.greenwichlibrary.org.
Stay up to date by subscribing to Greenwich Library’s email newsletters on topics such as AuthorsLive, Business, Music, Learning Lab, Teens and more at http://www.greenwichlibrary.org/enews. Follow us on Instagram @gwlibrary and Twitter @GWLibrary or find us on http://www.facebook.com/GreenwichLibrary.
About Greenwich Library
The Greenwich Library system consists of the Main Library and its Byram Shubert and Cos Cob branches. The mission of Greenwich Library is to provide exceptional resources, programs and services that promote the joy of lifelong learning and discovery, and to offer a welcoming place for people to gather and share experiences. With more than 2,000 programs and events per year, the Library seeks to serve as the cultural and intellectual crossroads of the community. Greenwich Library’s circulation is among the highest of public libraries in Connecticut and has been named a five-star library by Library Journal for 11 of the past 12 years for the high number of patron visits, circulation, use of public computers and attendance. Greenwich Library is located at 101 West Putnam Avenue in Greenwich. Cos Cob Library is located at 5 Sinawoy Road in Cos Cob. Byram Shubert Library is located at 21 Mead Avenue in Greenwich. More information is available online at www.greenwichlibrary.org or by calling 203-622-7900.
