BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Mercantile Library//Events//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:Mercantile Library Events X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/New_York BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event-11@mercantilelibrary.com DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221217T103000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221217T113000 SUMMARY:Rock & Read DESCRIPTION:This group reads “music books” that encompass memoirs\, bio graphies\, novels that feature music and those involved with it as a subjec t. LOCATION:414 Walnut St. \, #1100\, Cincinnati\, OH\, 45202 URL:https://www.mercantilelibrary.com/c/2022/12/17/rock-read END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event-367@mercantilelibrary.com DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250429T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250429T200000 SUMMARY:An Evening with The Opus 76 Quartet DESCRIPTION:Please join us for an evening of music at The Mercantile Librar y with The Opus 76 Quartet!\nThe Programme: J. Brahms - Quartet no.1 in C m inor J. Haydn - op.76 no.4: II. Adagio L. van Beethoven - op.132: I. Assai sostenuto\, Allegro - IV. Alla Marcia\, Assai Vivace - V. Allegro Apassiona to\nCirca. 50 mins run time\n6 pm reception/6:30 pm program Free & open to the public. Registration required.\nAbout The Opus 76 Quartet\nThe Opus 76 Quartet\, established in 2017\, has swiftly emerged as a leading force in t he classical music world\, earning acclaim in prestigious international mus ic journals such as Bachtrack\, Gramophone\, and The Strad for their except ional performances\, innovative programming\, and deep commitment to educat ion and community outreach. They have appeared in a wide variety of venues including Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall\, Cincinnati Music Hall\, Kau fman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City\, the Midwest Trust Cent er and at the OK Mozart Festival in Oklahoma\, with highly anticipated perf ormances on the horizon at The Grand Tetons Music Festival and at St John's Smith Square and King’s Place in London.\nHailed as “Kansas City’s G em of a Quartet” by the Kansas City Star\, the ensemble consists of prize winning musicians Keith Stanfield\, Zsolt Eder\, Ashley Stanfield\, and Da niel Ketter. Their recent debut at Carnegie Hall was described by Gramophon e as “a fine reflection of their five-year journey from regional emergenc e to national recognition\,” underscoring their rapid rise and significan t impact on the classical music scene. LOCATION:414 Walnut Street\, #1100\, Cincinnati\, OH\, 45202 URL:https://www.mercantilelibrary.com/c/2025/04/29/an-evening-with-the-opus -76-quartet END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event-333@mercantilelibrary.com DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250501T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250501T193000 SUMMARY:Words & Music Lecture: Fred Hersch DESCRIPTION:Jazz could not contain Fred Hersch.\nHersch’s prodigious tale nt as a sideman—a pianist who played with the giants of the twentieth cen tury in the autumn of their careers\, including Art Farmer and Joe Henderso n—blossomed further in the eighties and beyond into a compositional geniu s that defied the boundaries of bop\, sweeping in elements of pop\, classic al\, and folk to create a wholly new music.\nGood Things Happen Slowly is h is memoir. It’s the story of the first openly gay\, HIV-positive jazz pla yer\; a deep look into the cloistered jazz culture that made such a status both transgressive and groundbreaking\; and a profound exploration of how H ersch’s two-month-long coma in 2007 led to his creating some of the fines t\, most direct\, and most emotionally compelling music of his career.\nRem arkable\, and at times lyrical\, Good Things Happen Slowly is an evocation of the twilight of Post-Stonewall New York\, and a powerfully brave narrati ve of illness\, recovery\, music\, creativity\, and the glorious reward of finally becoming oneself.\n6 pm reception/6:30 pm program $25 for Members\, $50 for Non-Members. Registration required.\nCopies of Good Things Happen Slowly will be available for sale.\nAbout Fred Hersch\nJazz pianist\, compo ser\, activist\, and educator Fred Hersch is a ten-time Grammy nominee and the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition. He was named a 2016 Doris Duke Artist and has twice been awarded Jazz Pianist of the Yea r by the Jazz Journalists Association. He concertizes worldwide as a solo a rtist\, as a collaborator\, and with the Fred Hersch Trio. He was a longtim e member of the Jazz Studies faculty of the New England Conservatory and no w teaches at Rutgers University. He is the subject of the feature documenta ry The Ballad of Fred Hersch. He lives in New York City and Pennsylvania wi th his partner\, Scott Morgan. LOCATION:414 Walnut Street\, #1100\, Cincinnati\, OH\, 45202 URL:https://www.mercantilelibrary.com/c/2025/05/01/words-music-lecture-fred -hersch END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event-515@mercantilelibrary.com DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260210T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250210T193000 SUMMARY:Over the Rhine: Infamous Love Songs DESCRIPTION:Join beloved musical duo OTR as they return to the Mercantile L ibrary for a collection of Infamous Love Songs.\n\nFrom Linford Detweiler ( w/Karin Bergquist close by)September 2025\, Martinsville\, Ohio\nSome years ago\, when Johnny Cash’s career was undergoing a resurgence during his c reative collaborations with producer Rick Rubin\, someone made an attempt t o organize Johnny’s songs into three categories: God\, Love\, and Death.\ nIt occurred to me then that maybe those are the only three subjects availa ble to the writer. I have tried to write about all three.\nAnd yet\, one ni ght over a late night beverage\, by way of confession\, I admitted to a col league (a fellow songwriter) that I was embarrassed by the possibility that every song I had ever written was essentially a love song.\nWithout missin g a beat he responded\, Well\, maybe\, but you don’t just write about fal ling in love: you write about what happens further down the road.\nI was re lieved and grateful to receive that perspective\, because ladies and gentle men\, we are indeed further down the road. Karin and I have been writing\, and making records together as Over the Rhine for 35 years. We’ve been ma rried for 29 of those. Long live musical couples.\nJohnny and June might be our patron saints\, but they are not the only ones. A significant swath of our favorite music over the years has been made by that rare and endangere d breed of exotic zoo animal: the musical couple. (The list includes Gillia n Welch and David Rawlings\, Buddy and Julie Miller\, Richard and Linda Tho mpson\, The Innocence Mission and others.)\nBut back to further down the ro ad… Poet Christina Rosetti famously wrote the lines:\nDoes the road wind uphill all the way?\nYes\, to the very end.\nFew things in life get easier as the years pass. But from this vantage point\, after 35 years of climbing \, we can see the broader view. We can see the two songwriters who were sto ned on love and words and possibility. We can see the couple who almost cal led it a day\, and yet found their way into — and with — each other. We learned that we tend two separate gardens: the garden of our career in mus ic\, and the garden of our life together well apart from the noise of the m usic industry.\nWe know well the thrill of opening shows for Bob Dylan or L ucinda Williams\, getting to play at Newport Folk Festival\, or in Japan\, or New Zealand. And checking those things off our dream list was indeed a t hrill. Seeing the world on the backs of the songs. Watching a community coa lesce around our music that crossed borders and boundaries.\nAnd now it is also the deeper abiding joy of quietly walking two Irish Wolfhounds in the cool of the evening. At home. Being together. The fact that we can still ma ke each other laugh. Sharing a story that’s still being written. We live together on a small farm\, grow songs\, host concerts in the restored barn\ , and curate and host Nowhere Else Festival — our very own music and arts festival\, the festival that we were always looking for but never quite fo und until we built it ourselves.\nBoth/and.\nWe have written a lifetime of love songs in all shapes and sizes. We were curious as to what an evening d evoted entirely to the possibilities of love songs might feel like. And so\ , come Valentine’s Day\, we’re going to go find a few favorite stages\, and find out. We hope you’ll join us.\n\n6 pm reception/6:30 pm program Tickets required. LOCATION:414 Walnut Street\, #1100\, Cincinnati\, OH\, 45202 URL:https://www.mercantilelibrary.com/c/2026/02/10/over-the-rhine-infamous- love-songs END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT UID:event-532@mercantilelibrary.com DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261007T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261007T193000 SUMMARY:The Words & Music Lecture: Carrie Brownstein DESCRIPTION:THIS LECTURE IS SOLD OUT - Please email michael@mercantilelibra ry.com to be added to the waitlist.\nCarrie Brownstein delivers the 2026 Wo rds & Music Lecture.\nFrom the guitarist of the pioneering band Sleater-Kin ney\, the book Kim Gordon says "everyone has been waiting for" and a New Yo rk Times Notable Book -- a candid\, funny\, and deeply personal look at mak ing a life--and finding yourself--in music. Before Carrie Brownstein becam e a music icon\, she was a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest j ust as it was becoming the setting for one the most important movements in rock history. Seeking a sense of home and identity\, she would discover bot h while moving from spectator to creator in experiencing the power and myst ery of a live performance. With Sleater-Kinney\, Brownstein and her bandmat es rose to prominence in the burgeoning underground feminist punk-rock move ment that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s. They would be ci ted as “America’s best rock band” by legendary music critic Greil Mar cus for their defiant\, exuberant brand of punk that resisted labels and li mitations\, and redefined notions of gender in rock. Hunger Makes Me A Mod ern Girl is an intimate and revealing narrative of her escape from a turbul ent family life into a world where music was the means toward self-inventio n\, community\, and rescue. Along the way\, Brownstein chronicles the excit ement and contradictions within the era’s flourishing and fiercely indepe ndent music subculture\, including experiences that sowed the seeds for the observational satire of the popular television series Portlandia years lat er. With deft\, lucid prose Brownstein proves herself as formidable on the page as on the stage. Accessibly raw\, honest and heartfelt\, this book ca ptures the experience of being a young woman\, a born performer and an outs ider\, and ultimately finding one’s true calling through hard work\, cour age and the intoxicating power of rock and roll.\n\n6 pm reception/6:30 pm program $25 for Members\, $50 for Non-Members. Registration required.\nCopi es of Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl will be available for sale & signing co urtesy of Joseph-Beth Cincinnati.\n\nCarrie Brownstein is a musician\, writ er and actor who first became widely known as the guitarist and vocalist of the band Sleater-Kinney and later as a creator\, writer and co-star of the Emmy-nominated\, Peabody Award winning television show Portlandia. Brownst ein's writing has appeared in The New York Times\, The Believer\, Slate\, a nd numerous anthologies on music and culture. She lives in Portland\, Orego n and Los Angeles. LOCATION:414 Walnut Street\, #1100\, Cincinnati\, OH\, 45202 URL:https://www.mercantilelibrary.com/c/2026/10/07/the-words-music-lecture- carrie-brownstein END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR