Summer Reading 2024
On the beach, on the porch, on the couch, even in the kitchen: here’s where you can get more from our 2024/25 artists!
Ina Garten
With a brand called “The Barefoot Contessa” and a home base in the Hamptons, Ina Garten brings summer vibes wherever she goes. Which of her best-selling cookbooks will be your go-to for this summer’s cookouts, pool parties, and too-hot-to-cook suppers?
How about Make it Ahead (2014, Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed)? Take a break and flip through these recipes designed to make entertaining (and contributing to potlucks) easy and stress-free.
The Four Seasons
Australian Chamber Orchestra returns this fall with The Four Seasons, a look at Vivaldi’s masterpiece in its context amid the swirl of European and Middle Eastern cultures in eighteenth-century Venice.
Author Laurel Corona also reuses Vivaldi’s iconic title for her novel The Four Seasons: A Novel of Vivaldi’s Venice (2008, Hachette). Corona weaves a tale of two talented orphan sisters who take divergent paths: one who marries into the aristocracy, and one who pursues her musical gifts, becoming Vivaldi’s muse.
Martha Graham & Agnes de Mille
She looms large as one of the most prominent and influential artists of the 20th century, so it’s no surprise that Martha Graham and her legacy continue to attract the attention of biographers and critics.
Errand Into the Maze: The Life and Works of Martha Graham (2023, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux) by longtime dance writer and former Village Voice critic Deborah Jowett is the latest consideration of Graham’s brilliant career. Errand Into the Maze was rated among the Best Books of the Year by The New Yorker, and was a Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Month. It was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and is a Celebrity Series Staff Pick.
Agnes de Mille’s ballet Rodeo features prominently in Martha Graham Dance Company’s program. De Mille’s autobiography, Dance to the Piper (New York Review Books), was originally published in 1951 and republished in 2015. De Mille also penned a now out-of-print 1992 biography of Graham, Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham.
Lang Lang
Get to know pianist Lang Lang when you pick up Journey of A Thousand Miles: My Story (Random House), his 2009 memoir written with David Ritz. Lang Lang tells of his early training, the weight of his immense talent, his parents’ belief in him, and his drive to be the best.
Jazz Places
Summer is a time for jazz festivals, whether close-ish to home in Newport, or farther afield like Montreal, Chicago, San Jose, Monterey, or Montreaux. All you have to do is name the place: fans can fill in the rest from their memory or imagination.
Author and professor Kimberly Hannon Teal considers iconic jazz clubs and other locales in her Jazz Places: How Performance Spaces Shape Jazz History (2021, University of California Press). Teal considers the Village Vanguard, Preservation Hall, SFJazz’s home base, and other spaces to reflect on the forces that shaped jazz history and how that legacy continues to affect contemporary artists (including some Celebrity Series regulars).
Book Club: 2024/25
Coming soon: we’ll announce plans for two Celebrity Series Book Club opportunities, related to upcoming performances in the 2024/25 season!
Explore Celebrity Series’ full 2024/25 season, with over 70 ticketed and free events across Boston! CelebritySeries.org
