Discussion group meets on the second Saturday of the month at 11:00 a.m.
The Cambridge Society for Early Music presents lutenist Hopkinson Smith for a concert of inventive music, which traverses realms of melancholy, solace and merriment, with works of Dowland, Holborne, Johnson, and Byrd.
Hopkinson Smith is a world-renowned performer on early lutes and guitars. A Harvard graduate, he studied in Catalonia and Switzerland, and in 1974 he was a co-founder of the famous ensemble Hespèrion XX in Basel. He has focused on solo music since the mid-1980s. His splendid series of more than 25 CDs, including lute arrangements of Bach’s works for solo strings, have been showered with praise.
His recent CD, fancifully entitled “Mad Dog,” is devoted to the Golden Age of Elizabethan lute music. The BBC called it “mesmerizing,” and it won a Diapason d’Or award.
$30 | $25 seniors & Athenaeum members | students free
Information: www.csem.org | 617-489-2062
Each holiday break, the Clothing Connection gifts a book to the children served during the winter season. These books, based on the students’ reading level and interests, are selected by the reading specialists at Carlton, Bates and Saltsonstall schools.
Please join the Clothing Connection for an afternoon of winter-themed poetry read by local writers at the Salem Athenaeum on Sunday, December 9 at 4 pm. Books will be available for “purchase” at the event. Alternatively, attendees can make a monetary donation to be put towards book costs.
Coffee and cocoa will be served.
The Monday Evening Conversations Group meets on the second Monday of the month at 7:00 PM. All members and other interested parties are invited.
It may be of interest to know that the The Social Library, predecessor of the Salem Athenæum, was founded by a similar discussion group, called the Monday Evening Club. Edward Augustus Holyoke, Rev. Thomas Barnard, Rev. Thomas Gilchrist, Benjamin Lynde, Nathaniel Ropes and others were among the Monday Evening Club founders, who gathered to discuss current events and topics of mutual interest.
Topics for discussion are wide open, but must be amenable to good conversation. Examples include:
- The long ranging effects of the Civil War
- The courage to be vulnerable
- European architecture
- The importance/non importance of art
- Why have friends
Meetings will start with something to help frame the discussion for the evening, such as a:
- brief talk
- podcast
- video
- reading of prose or poetry
- music
We look forward to talking with you!