Jean Harripersaud's blog

Economy has you down? Can’t afford to go away this summer? Cheer up! Plan a vacation right at home in New York City. Go library hopping and enjoy a plethora of high quality cultural performances at the New York Public Library - for FREE!

Last Saturday, I visited the Bronx Library Center (where a free performance is offered every Saturday at 2:30 pm), and was treated to the finest quality of Latin Jazz performed by an ensemble led by one of the masters of Latin Jazz – Edy Martinez. Edy Martinez is one of the developers of Latin jazz and an honoree of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.
He has won much acclaim for his cds Midnight Jazz Affair and Privilegio.

Edy Martinez and ensemble in concert at the Bronx Library Center →

This is just one of the many high quality free performances you can enjoy at the New York Public Library. Each month vast array of programs are offered. Here are a few highlights of what’s coming up:

Jose Obando – a Salsa Expert and Museologist and his ensemble will be performing at the following libraries:

Aguilar Library – Saturday, May 9 at 2 pm
Van Cortlandt Library - Saturday, May 16 at 2 pm
125th Street Library – Saturday, May 30 at 3 pm
Inwood Library – June 13 at 2:00 pm
Castle Hill Library - June 27 at 2:00 pm

Jose Obando’s performances are more than just music performances. He educates the audience by explaining the history and cultural context of the actual selections performed. Subsequently, individuals who have no formal knowledge of this music appreciate it all the more.

If you’re a theater fan – then you don’t want to miss Brief Shorts - A Tribute to Ionesco's Centennial by the Xoregos Performing Company, a talented group of actors.

← Xoregos Performing Company with Erin Jennings and Keith Carter.  Costumes by Carla Gant.

Brief Shorts, a quintet of unusual danced plays by five contemporary playwrights including its tribute to Eugène Ionesco. Celebrating the centenary of Ionesco’s birth, they will perform his 1953 playlet, Maid to Marry. The program also includes works by Adam Kraar and Adé Adémola, both living in Brooklyn, Rick Foster, who lives in Northern California and Curtis Zahn, a published Southern California playwright and poet.

Brief Shorts will be performed at the following libraries:

Yorkville Branch Library - Monday, June 29 at 6:30 pm
Muhlenberg Branch Library - Tuesday, July 7 at 6 pm
Morningside Heights Branch Library - Thursday, July 9 at 6 pm
96th Street Branch Library - Saturday, July 11 at 2 pm
Hamilton Grange Branch Library - Monday, July 13 at 5 pm
Webster Branch Library - Thursday, July 16 at 6 pm
Kips Bay Branch Library - Saturday, July 18 at 2:30 pm

To see more performances, please visit our calendar at http://www.nypl.org/calendar

Or just stay tuned to hear more about upcoming events … (Sneak preview: Circus in the library, shhh!)

Please join us this month as we discuss Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird.

The Bronx is currently having its first ever NEA Big Read hosted by the Bronx Council on the Arts and the New York Public Library’s Bronx Library Center. The title – To Kill A Mockingbird.

To Kill a Mockingbird was first published in 1960. Since then it has won a Pulitzer and has been translated into more than 40 languages.

"That rare literary phenomenon, a Southern novel with no mildew on its magnolia leaves. Funny, happy and written with unspectacular precision, To Kill a Mockingbird is about conscience—how it is instilled in two children, Scout and Jem Finch; how it operates in their father, Atticus a lawyer appointed to defend a Negro on a rape charge, and how conscience crows in their small Alabama town." —Vogue

"All of the tactile brilliance and none of the precocity generally supposed to be standard swamp-warfare issues for Southern writers... Novelist Lee's prose has an edge that cuts through cant, and she teaches the reader an astonishing number of use truths about little girls and about Southern life... Scout Finch is fiction's most pealing child since Carson McCullers's Frankie got left behind at the wedding." —Time

On a personal note, this is my third reading of To Kill a Mockingbird and with each new reading I am captivated all over again as if I am reading it for the very first time.

To Kill A Mockingbird is a novel about race, childhood and community in the American South. Scout and her brother Jem live with their father Atticus Finch, an attorney. Scout, Jem and their friend Dill are obsessed with the whereabouts of their strange neighbor Boo Radley, who has not come out of his house for years. The children spend their days acting out scenarios of Boo Radley’s behavior. Their life however, took a turn when their father was appointed to defend the black man accused of raping a white girl. The children were finally able to meet Boo Radley, but through circumstances, they had never imagined...

Stay tuned during the entire month of May for discussion questions and feel free to comment with your thoughts on To Kill a Mockingbird at any time!