Past Events

Anna Webber is a flutist, saxophonist, and composer whose interests and work live in the aesthetic overlap between avant-garde jazz and new classical music. Her new album, Shimmer Wince, explores Just Intonation in a jazz setting, and is a follow-up to her critically-acclaimed release Idiom. That album earned Webber the accolade of being named the top composer of the year by JazzTimes in 2021.

Known as an innovative guitarist since the early 1980’s, Joe Morris added performing on double bass in 2000. He has performed and/or recorded on bass with many of the most important contemporary artists in improvised music. As a bassist, guitarist or drummer, Morris is featured as leader, co-leader, or sideman on more than 160 commercially released recordings on the labels. Morris has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe as well as in Brazil, Korea and Japan. He has lectured and conducted workshops on his own music and on improvisation, and is the author of the book, Perpetual Frontier: The Properties of Free Music (Riti Publishing 2012).

Join us for an evening of music, wine, and food. Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Debra Vinci, founder and lead vocalist of the band, DVinci Soul, has put together a new jazz quintet, "DVinci Jazz," to play for our GBH Lounge Thursdays this week on December 21st from 6:00- 7:00 pm at the Boston Public Library. Musicians include Debra Vinci on vocals, Tal Shalom Kobi on upright bass, Renato Malavasi on drums, Pamela Hines on piano, and Jeff Garmel on saxophone. The band will be visiting Debra's early jazz roots, paying homage to some of her favorite singers--Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, Nancy Wilson, and Aretha Franklin. You’ll hear a wide array of jazz standards and styles from Swing to Bossa, to Gospel, Blues and Latin.

Join us for an evening of music, wine, and food. Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Take a break from holiday shopping in the Back Bay and join Jimmy Hills and his guests at noon in the GBH studio located in the Newsfeed Cafe at the Boston Public Library. This lunchtime holiday break takes place on December 20th, bringing you an afternoon of soulful expression.

Join James "Jimmy" Hills, the host of Java With Jimmy, on December 20th for a Soulful Java Holiday celebration at GBH that extends far beyond mere festivity. It’s a moving testament to the unity and communal spirit of the holidays needed all year long. With the presence of pianist, Mark A. Copeland, the enchanting melodies of Guitarist, Tyrone J. Chase, the rhythmic melodic tones of vocalists, Angela Elizabeth & Amandi Music, you're invited to immerse yourself in the magic of connection and the power of music that surpasses the holiday season.

Registration is encouraged for this free event.

Cambridge Forum delves into a controversial topic – the state of singlehood.
Lots of health research indicates that people who live alone, have higher health risks and are generally unhappier. Well, not so, according to Bella DePaulo (Ph.D) author of a new book, “Single At Heart”. DePaulo is a 70-year old psychologist, who in addition to being single all her life, has also studied the state of being single from a professional standpoint and she is adamant that there are multiple myths about her chosen way of living.

“I could be living at a time or in a place where the prospects for staying single for life would have been much more daunting. Maybe it would have been nearly impossible for me to support myself financially without a spouse. Maybe attitudes toward single people would have been even more disparaging than they are now.  That would have been a profound loss. For people like me who are single at heart, the risk is not what we’ll miss if we do not organize our lives around a romantic partner, but what we’ll miss if we do. We would miss the opportunity to live our most meaningful, fulfilling and psychologically rich lives by living someone else’s version of a good life instead of our own. We would not get to be who we really are.”

Joining DePaulo will be Fenton Johnson, who has written extensively about the state of marriage and the state of solitude. He is author of three novels and four works of creative nonfiction, most recently At the Center of All Beauty:  Solitude and the Creative Life, a New York Times Editors’ Pick. At various times a contributor to NPR, Harper’s Magazine, and the New York Times Magazine, he has received numerous literary awards. Johnson has taught in the nation’s leading creative writing programs and is Emeritus Professor of the University of Arizona.

To mark the 250th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, Revolutionary Spaces is sponsoring a civic event to honor three Community Changemakers whose leadership in bringing people together in dialogue has built a shared sense of purpose to drive change. Through their efforts, these honorees organized and inspired people to take action to ensure their voices are heard and represented.

This gathering provides an opportunity to reflect on a less-remembered part of the Boston Tea Party story that can inspire participation in our democracy today: the weeks of community meetings that took place at Old South Meeting House after the first of the tea ships arrived on November 28, 1773. Through these gatherings, the community achieved a shared sense of purpose that led to a world-changing action: that the drastic action of destroying the tea was necessary to ensure that the Crown and Parliament understood the colonists’ commitment to the principle of representation.

The Legacy of the Tea Party: Honoring Community Changemakers will take place at Old South Meeting House on the evening of December 14, 2023, marking the 250th anniversary of the start of the final round of large-scale meetings at Old South Meeting House that culminated in the 5,000-person gathering on December 16, 1773 that preceded the destruction of the tea that night.

With an inspiring and uplifting atmosphere, this event will honor leaders who exemplify the same commitment to community dialogue, civic action, and representation that were also prerequisites for the American Revolution and founding principles of our nation. Their efforts also remind us that the work of creating and sustaining a free society remains unfinished, and that our collective future can and will be shaped by the strength and depth of our civic engagement. Each Community Changemaker has, in their unique way, turned words into action and exemplified the same courage of their convictions and the spirit of change demonstrated by the patriots of 1773.

Click here to livestream the event.

Raised in Baltimore, Maryland, John Paul McGee, at the age of four without formal training, began playing familiar hymns and church songs by ear. Dr. McGee studied piano and pipe organ under the renowned late Dr. Nathan Carter and graduated in 2002 from Baltimore School for the Arts. He has been recognized for numerous awards and his musical career has taken him around the globe as a keyboardist, vocal arranger, producer, and songwriter working with popular gospel and secular artists. His instrumental piano album released in 2014 with EPM records yielded him the #9 spot as in the top 10 Billboard recording artists. Dr. John Paul McGee is the current assistant chair of piano at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

Photo credit: John Paul McGee

Experience the magic of this season with GBH Music's Holiday Spectacular, an enchanting evening featuring some of the best musical acts in Massachusetts, now available on demand!

Access to oil and gas has long held an influence over the politics of individual nations and their relations with others. But as more countries move toward sustainable energy, and supply chain shortages affect the availability of oil and gas, how will these changes in energy industries impact relations geopolitics?

Join WorldBoston for a timely discussion of this topic with Sarah Emerson, founder and president of Energy Security Analysis, Inc (ESAI).

Readings and performances of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol have played an integral part in winter holiday festivities since longer than most of us can remember. What fewer people know, however, is that the British literary superstar and his popular novella actually helped bring Christmas back to Boston.

Accompanied by a beautiful slide show, Susan Wilson—the Official House Historian of the Parker House—traces the history of Christmas celebrations, which were discouraged and even banned in the Puritan stronghold of colonial Boston. Wilson explains how and why Christmas finally began to be embraced in the mid 19th century, and how Charles Dickens' arrival in 1867—when he made his home at the Parker House for 5 months—really added fuel to the yule log.

Hear from the author of a revelatory memoir about a 330-mile walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City—an unforgettable pilgrimage to the heart of America across some of our oldest common ground.

Neil King Jr.’s desire to walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City began as a whim and soon became an obsession. By the spring of 2021, events had intervened that gave his desire greater urgency. His neighborhood still reeled from the January 6th insurrection. Covid lockdowns and a rancorous election had deepened America’s divides. Neil himself bore the imprints of a long battle with cancer.

Determined to rediscover what matters in life and to see our national story with new eyes, Neil turned north with a small satchel on his back and one mission in mind: To pay close attention to the land he crossed and the people he met.

What followed is an extraordinary 26-day journey through historic battlefields and cemeteries, over the Mason-Dixon line, past Quaker and Amish farms, along Valley Forge stream beds, atop a New Jersey trash mound, across New York Harbor, and finally, to his ultimate destination: the Ramble, where a tangle of pathways converges in Central Park. The journey travels deep into America’s past and present, uncovering forgotten pockets and overlooked people. At a time of mounting disunity, the trip reveals the profound power of our shared ground.

This program is part of the American Inspiration Series from American Ancestors/NEHGS and presented in partnership with with the Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library and the GBH Forum Network.