Artists and Musicians

Gershwin Mania Brings Renewed Interest to Robert Wyatt's Scholarship

Steinway Artist and music scholar Robert Wyatt's definitive 2004 work on Gershwin,The George Gershwin Reader, published by Oxford University Press, has garnered renewed attention and additional acclaim recently as the great American composer finds himself once again at center stage. In his article recognizing the 75th anniversary of George Gershwin's death, and the two Tony awards recently awarded to the The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, Brad Hathaway of DCTheaterScene.com uses the George Gershwin Reader as a primary reference on Gershwin's remarkable life and work. Review of The George Gershwin Reader

For more on Robert Wyatt, please visit: Robert Wyatt's Website

 

Bob Finch Speaks at the Jacob Sears Library

The esteemed Cape Cod writer Robert Finch presented a unique program to a capacity crowd at the Jacob Sears Memorial Library on Sunday, March 25. Mr. Finch presented a series of portraits of Cape Codders and Newfoundlanders, who bear striking similarities and differences. Mr. Finch has written extensively about both Cape Cod and Newfoundland, with highly acclaimed works including A Cape Cod Notebook and The Iambics of Newfoundland. (Please click here for a review of The Iambics of Newfoundland)

Widely regarded as one of America's leading nature writers, Bob Finch has lived on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, since 1971. He has published seven books of essays and is co-editor of The Norton Book of Nature Writing. A Cape Cod Notebook is a collection of his weekly radio commentaries broadcast for the past six years on WCAI, the woods Hole NPR affiliate of WGBH, and for which he received the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for Radio Writing in 2005. Bob Finch's essays have appeared in numerous magazines and journals and his books have been translated into Japanese and Chinese. For his body of work he was named as one of the New England Literary Lights for 1999 by the Associates of the Boston Public Library, and in 2001 he received the Non-Fiction Award from the New England Booksellers Association.

Mr. Finch has taught at numerous colleges and writers conferences, including Williams College, Emerson College, Carleton College, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Since October 2002 Mr. Finch has been a member of the nonfiction faculty of the MFA in Writing Program at Spalding University, Louisville, Kentucky. The author lives in Wellfleet, MA, with his wife, the writer Kathy Shorr.

In addition to his writing, Robert Finch finds time for other passions as well, including music. He sings with the Chatham Chorale, and will be performing with the Cape Cod Symphony, and members of the Chatham Chorale and Falmouth Chorale, in the Mahler Symphony No. 2 concert, May 5 and 6, in celebration of the Symphony's 50th anniversary. Later in that month, the Chatham Chorale will perform the world premiere of a newly commissioned piece, with music by William Cutter and words by Robert Finch. For tickets and other information, please visit Chatham Chorale

Janet Robertson Interviews Novelist Harriet Rzetelny at the Provincetown Library

Harriet Rzetelny of Dennis, MA, author of the novel Graveyard Blues,discussed her beautifully written work at the Provincetown Library, Provincetown, MA, on Thursday, March 22, at 6:30 pm. The novel reveals both the extraordinary in ordinary lives and the ordinary and familiar in the lives of people who are marginalized. Ms. Rzetelny talked about the book and the fascinating life experiences that inspired it.

As a social worker in Manhattan for many years, Harriet Rzetelny has supported and advocated on behalf of people very much like those who come to life in the book - the addicted, the evicted, the mentally ill and mentally incapacitated, and people living a range a very different lifestyles. In the tradition of the social novel practiced by such writers as Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot, Harriet Rzetelny sheds realistic light on issues facing today’s society while she impels us from page to page with a fascinating story line – in this case, a winning combination of murder mystery and love story.

And then there is music, which fills the book as it fills Harriet’s own life. Harriet is a trained and accomplished musician, with a rich musical history that includes both studying at Julliard and opening for Bob Dylan. Harriet put music to the side as she pursued her graduate degree, developed her professional life, and raised her children

To read more about Harriet Rzetelny or to purchase Graveyard Blues, please visit http://www.artistsandmusicians.org/books  

Purchase Graveyard Blues

ArtistsAndMusicians Releases New Video for Garden Club of America Centennial

Graveyard Blues by Harriet Rzetelny

Hamilton Press, $14.95. Free shipping! Purchase Graveyard Blues

The Garden Club of America Announces Forthcoming Book by Historian William Seale

The Garden Club of America 1913-2013: A Growing Legacy will be published by the Smithsonian Institution Press in February 2013. The book, which presents the history of this important women's organization, is previewed in a video by artistsandmusicians.org: The Garden Club of America's Centennial Book

Pick a Bouquet for Eight Garden-Loving Friends...and Receive One Bouquet Free!

Garden Club of America's Gardens Private & Personal: $200 for Nine Books ($22.22/book). Free shipping. Supply is limited.

Purchase a carton of eight gardening books at half-price, and get a ninth copy free! If you and your friends love gardens, this is a great gift opportunity.

The Garden Club of America's outstanding 2008 book Gardens Private & Personal has sold through in many stores and is in its third printing. The book includes 256 stunning photographs of private gardens, and beautifully written and informative text. 

Books are shipped direcly by the Garden Club of America. ArtistsAndMusicians.org does not benefit in any way from this offer. To obtain more information or to place an order, please send an email with your name and shipping address to  info@artistsandmusicians.org . We will respond immediately with details on payment and delivery. 

 

Deborah Forman Speaks on her Acclaimed New Book, Perspectives on the Provincetown Art Colony

On Sunday, August 21, the Jacob Sears Memorial Library in East Dennis, MA, presented Perspectives on the Provincetown Art Colony, a talk by author Deborah Forman on her just-released, landmark two-volume history of “the nation’s oldest art colony.”

Perspectives on the Provincetown Art Colony was published in June, 2011 by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. and immediately heralded as the most comprehensive review of the art colony to date. As a journalist trained in and devoted to the arts, Deborah Forman has engaged with the Provincetown colony for more than 30 years – conducting interviews, writing articles, and filming an acclaimed documentary.  Ms. Forman shared first-hand stories of the celebrated artists and writers fascinated and influenced by Provincetown, from Robert Motherwell,  Raphael Soyer, and Paul Resika, to Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, and Saul Bellow. 

Author D.J.Murphy Participates in the Col d'Aubisque Challenge, July 11 2011

Among the five cyclists participating in the Col d'Aubisque Challenge on July 11, 2011, was D.J. Murphy, whose recent novel A Thousand Veils, has received widespread critical acclaim. A retired international lawyer who has also worked to assist refugees seeking asylum from political or religious persecution, Murphy spins a riveting tale set in New York, Paris, Baghdad, Saudi Arabia, and the French Alps. For more, please visit A Thousand Veils

Jacob Sears Library Hosts Harriet Rzetelny and John Dirac in "Love. Really!"

Author, singer, and social worker Harriet Rzetelny of Dennis, MA, read passages from her new novel Graveyard Blues in a program at Jacob Sears Memorial Library on Sunday, June 5. Accompanied by guitarist John Dirac, Harriet also sang songs either featured in the novel or inspired by its powerful theme: the unpredictable, often inexplicable, face of love. As music pervades the lives of Harriet Rzetelny’s characters, it also fills her writing, which one reviewer likened to “the echoes of song, the cadence that takes one’s breath away.” 

For more information on Graveyard Blues and Harriet Rzetelny, please click here: Graveyard Blues