Lexington Community Ed Speaker Series
Using Statistics to Find New 3-Dimensional Spaces, A Journey in Pure Mathematics
with Melanie Matchett Wood
3/27/2025 | 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
LHS Science Lecture Hall
This talk will explain to a general audience how mathematicians imagine and study 3 dimensional spaces different from the familiar space we live in. We will hear about a discovery of the existence of new 3-dimensional spaces by Sawin and Wood that came about by applying ideas from probability and statistics. Without any mathematical background required, we will get a glimpse into cutting edge mathematics.
Melanie Matchett Wood is the William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. Her work spans number theory, algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, and probability. At age sixteen, Melanie became the first female American to make the United States International Math Olympiad Team. She won two silver medals at the IMO, in1998 and 1999. In college at Duke University, she was the first American woman Putnam Fellow. Melanie completed her PhD at Princeton University, and was then a Szego Assistant Professor at Stanford University, a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Chancellor’s Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2021, Wood received the National Science Foundation’s Alan T. Waterman Award, the nation’s highest honor for early-career scientists and engineers, and in 2022 Wood received a MacArthur Fellowship.
Django Jazz! A Celebration of the Genius of Django Reinhardt
with Henry Acker
2/22/2025 | 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Follen Church
Considered one of the greatest musicians of all time, Belgian- French guitarist Django Reinhardt forever transformed the way the instrument was played and heard. In 1934, along with violinist Stéphane Grappelli, Reinhardt formed the Paris-based Quintette du Hot Club de France. With unmatched technique, melodic sensibility, and rhythmic swing, the group was among the first that featured the jazz guitar as a lead instrument.
Henry Acker is a young powerhouse jazz guitarist who performs both in the style of Django Reinhardt as well as in the traditional jazz style. A child prodigy who began playing at age 8 and performing professionally at age 9, his talent and abilities have developed into nothing short of astonishing. Henry has already shared the stage with jazz greats Bucky Pizzarelli, Frank Vignola, Julian Lage, Bireli Lagrene and Vic Juris as well as Gypsy Jazz legends Samson Schmitt, Mozes Rosenberg, Adrien Moignard and Joscho Stephan. He is the winner of the 2017 Djangofest NorthWest Saga Award and a five time winner of the Downbeat Magazine Student Award for jazz guitar soloist. Based In Boston, MA, he also dazzles audiences at Jazz Festivals across the United States and Europe. He has taught at Frank Vignola’s guitar camp and at the distinguished Django in June Camp in Northampton, MA. In addition to Henry Acker the quartet consists of Jason Anick, Violin Bruno Peterson, Rhythm Guitar and Greg Loughman, Double Bass.
Everything Matters: Living the Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke
with Mark Burrows
3/2/2025 | 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
Follen Church
2025 marks the 150th anniversary of Rilke’s birth (1875–1926). Already a bestselling poet and writer during his lifetime, his influence has grown steadily over the century since his death. Many readers will remember the revelation of discovering his Letters to a Young Poet in which he famously advised us not to seek answers but rather to “live the questions.” His poems—from his early Book of Hours (1905) to his last two collections, The Sonnets to Orpheus and The Duino Elegies (1923)—do just this: they invite us to live into what he described as “the Open.” To embrace the intimate gifts of the “here-and-now.” To cherish the small mysteries that are always close to hand. And to discover how we belong to what he came to call “the Whole.” He will gladly sign copies of his new books: Sonnets to Orpheus: A New Translation and You Are the Future: Living the Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke, both published in 2024.
Mark S. Burrows is a poet, scholar, and teacher who has spent much of his life translating and interpreting Rilke’s poetry. Alongside his prize-winning translation of one of Rilke’s early works, Prayers of a Young Poet (later included as the opening section in The Book of Hours) is his new translation of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus (2024). In October, 2024, he published a book (co-authored with Stephanie Dowrick) shaped by Rilke’s wisdom, You Are the Future: Living Your Deepest Questions with Rainer Maria Rilke. He lives and writes in Camden, ME. soul-in-sight.org
Brilliance & Beauty: The Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay
with Stephen Collins
3/27/2025 | 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
LHS Science Lecture Hall
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), winner in 1923 of the second annual Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a daring, versatile writer whose work includes plays, essays, short stories, songs, and the libretto to an opera that premiered at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House to rave reviews. Millay infused new life into traditional poetic forms, bringing new hope to a generation of youth disillusioned by the political and social upheaval of the First World War. She ventured fearlessly beyond familiar poetic subjects to tackle political injustice, social discrimination, and women’s sexuality in her poems and prose. In the 1920’s and 1930s Millay was considered a spokesperson for personal freedom in America, particularly for women, and we turn to her lines to illuminate the social history of the period and the Bohemian lifestyle she and her friends enjoyed.
Stephen Collins grew up in Cambridge and received a BA in Literature from UMass Boston. After twenty plus years in a sales career, he is back doing what he truly loves—performing and teaching. Recently he has been teaching seminars on Whitman, Hardy, Shakespeare, Frost, and Contemporary Poetry at various locations.