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Music Profile; New England’s Musical Renaissance Woman — Audrey Ryan

June 13, 2012
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Audrey Ryan does not mince words when it comes to what she thinks of “hipster posers,” her generation of the “apathetic age,” armchair critics, and stalker fans. Ryan performs Saturday, June 16th at the Clarendon Hall Presbyterian Church in Somerville, MA at 7:30 p.m.

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Concert Review: The Song of Songs and Songs of Love in Sixteenth-century Spain

June 11, 2012
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The vocal ensemble Blue Heron closed its season with “a marvelously expansive concept of the divine” in a program of 16th-century Spanish music based on or inspired by the Song of Songs.

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Movie Review: “Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding”? Boomer Baloney

June 10, 2012
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Here is what I learned from watching the film Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding: Boomers are being sold down the river.

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Rock Concert Review: The Machine Performs Pink Floyd, Expertly

June 9, 2012
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Imitation and musical thievery are pretty standard in the current world of mainstream music, but when The Machine took the stage last night to perform the music of Pink Floyd, they drew a precise and deliberate line between impersonation and authentic tribute.

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Jazz Concert Review: Guitar Double Header at the Lily Pad — Joe Morris Trio/Mary Halvorson Quintet

June 9, 2012
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When the musical whirlwind came to an end the crowd responded with a standing ovation, an enthusiastic testament to the power of this sweat-soaked night of edgy jazz guitar.

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Fiction Review: An Unforgettable “Life of an Unknown Man”

June 7, 2012
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In The Life of an Unknown Man Andreï Makine creates a work of simple elegance that at its core explores the relationship of the past to the present, of truth to art, and of truth to life.

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Book Review: “Picturing the Book of Nature” — Empowering the Visual

June 6, 2012
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Given the flood of publications on early modern natural history over the last two decades, the detailed and strikingly illustrated Picturing the Book of Nature represents a herculean undertaking.

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Book Appreciation: Novelist and Short Story Writer John Cheever At 100 — America’s Chekhov?

June 4, 2012
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May 27th marked what would have been the one-hundredth anniversary of writer John Cheever’s birth. (He was born in Quincy, MA.) June 18th marks the thirtieth anniversary of his death.

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Book Review: Memoir as Love Letter — “Into the Garden with Charles”

June 4, 2012
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Into the Garden with Charles reads like a great love letter: beautifully written, full of feeling, a document of an intimate connection that never lost its wonder for the author.

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Jazz Review: “Bending Bridges” – Mary Halvorson Changes the Musical Conversation

June 3, 2012
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If you have a taste for something different that also has some depth and heft, then guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson’s new album may be just what you’re looking for.

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