May 2010 Programs

PLEASE NOTE: Regular Salon scheduling ended in April; Fridays in May feature a variety of programs starting at different times, so please check this listing for events and schedules!

New Members' Reception!

Mon 5/3, 5:30-7pm

Join us for a tour of the building, refreshments, and a chance to meet other members as well as the staff. For new Athenaeum members and their guests.

Micro-Memoir Workshop, Part II

Friday 5/7, 5 to 8pm; 5 to 5:30 for refreshments, activities begin at 5:30 (note: this is the correct time, it has been changed from what is on our calendar card).

Co-presented with Not About the Buildings.

Join us for the second of two fast, fun, participatory “Micro-Memoir” workshops this spring, during which attendees will write and read aloud extremely short (200-word) personal memoirs based on a question to be posed by our workshop facilitator, the noted short-short prose pioneer Karen Donovan, as each session begins. Participants will experience both the rigors and elation of writing short-short prose, and the reading aloud segment will be buoyed by the energy of surprise and speed. The more diverse the writing is, the more exciting the readings will be, so bring your parents, your children, and your friends, old and young. The intergenerational diversity and interaction will give participants new perspectives on the different way humans view the world around them at different points in their lives. You do NOT need to have attended the first workshop in March to attend this one. Workshop made possible in part by a grant from the RI State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the RI General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Free and open to the public! 

(Sponsor: Antiques & Interiors, antiquesandinteriors.biz)

Providence String Quartet

Wednesday 5/12, 7pm

Join the Providence String Quartet for a preview of Bartok’s String Quartet No. 5, featuring a performance of the piece along with an in-depth conversation about its history and how the PSQ went about developing their performance of it.

(The piece is among those they will play in a concert at the RISD Museum on Sat 5/15.) Having transcribed and cataloged thousands of folk songs from all over Eastern Europe and some from North Africa, Béla Bartók, along with his compatriot Zoltán Kodály, invented the field of ethnomusicology. Bartók’s music is an amazing synthesis of traditional Western-tonality and authentic Eastern European/Magyar folk music. Commissioned from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation in Washington, Bartók wrote his Fifth String Quartet in an unusually short amount of time, August 6 to September 6, 1934. It was premiered in Washington by the Kolisch Quartet on April 8, 1935.

Tickets to Athenaeum evening are $30 for Athenaeum members, $35 for nonmembers and MUST be purchased in advance: call 421-6970 or come into the library to purchase. RISD Museum concert is on 5/15 from 7:30 to 9:30 at the Metcalf Auditorium (use the Chace Center entrance to the Museum, 20 North Main Street). In addition to the Bartok,  the concert will also feature the Viola Quintet in F Major by Johannes Brahms, performed by the PSQ, joined by internationally acclaimed violist Kim Kashkashian. Tickets to RISD Museum concert are $35 for general public, $25 for RISD Museum and Athenaeum members. Reservations are recommended; call Community MusicWorks at 861-5650.

Twelfth Annual Philbrick Poetry Project Reading, With Poet Judge Marge Piercy and Honoree Kathleen M. Kelley

Friday 5/14, 7pm

Poet judge Piercy has chosen Kelley’s manuscript The Waiting Room as the 2010 Philbrick Poetry Project Honoree. Join us for the presentation of the honor and a reading by both poets. As part of the project, the Athenaeum has published The Waiting Room as a chapbook; copies will be on sale at the reading. The Athenaeum’s Philbrick Poetry Project is named for long-time Athenaeum members Charles Philbrick, a noted poet, and his wife Deborah, a mentor to many poets, and fosters the art of poetry in RI and New England. The Philbrick Poetry Project is made possible in part by a grant from the RI State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the RI General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Free and open to the public!

The Legendary Pub Quiz!

Fri 5/21, 7:30pm

Call 421-6970 to reserve a spot. $5 for Athenaeum members; $10 for non-members.

SALON - Poetry Aloud!

Friday 5/28, 5-7pm

Join us for a favorite Athenaeum tradition, declaiming verse in the Reading Room. Bring a poem you’ve written, a poem you’ve loved, or come browse our poetry shelves that evening and find one you can’t resist, and we’ll take turns reading aloud. It’s the last event on our spring calendar - don’t miss this chance to wax lyrical with old friends and new!

Free and open to the public!

(Sponsor: Studio Hop, 810 Hope Street, 401-621-2262)