Doggerel: An Evening with Reginald Dwayne Betts at Real Art Ways

Join us on Monday, June 16, 6:00 pm for a reading and conversation with author Reginald Dwayne Betts to celebrate the launch of his new book, Doggerel.  “Doggerel is an apt name for this lovely collection, with the canine hidden in plain sight in its title and coursing through so many of the poems. Betts manages to capture essences of memory, of hope or loss, of oft-overlooked everydayness—in a way that feels surprising and familiar at once.”—Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, author of the #1…

BURNT SUGAR THE ARKESTRA CHAMBER’S first New England “Toast & Roast the Coast” tour kicks off at Real Art Ways on Friday, June 6, at 7 pm. The tour supports their latest release, If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth Pt. Two, and their latest sonic “play pen,” The Burnt Sugar SmokeHouse!  Each Show of “Never Playing Anything the Same Way Once” will be special unto itself. Funded in part by the New England States Touring program of the New…

Presenting in partnership with the Hartford Public Library…Please join us on Saturday, April 26, 4:00 pm for a conversation with author Dr. Maria Sirois to celebrate the launch of her new book, The Generous Exchange: How Attention to Beauty, Goodness, and Excellence Restores Us and Our World. “Maria Sirois is a healer, of people and of communities. And when she turns her attention and voice to healing our global village, I feel more optimistic about what lies ahead. This profound book is a…

Saturday, March 15, at 7 pm – Real Art Ways, in partnership with the Greater Hartford Arts Council, Hartford Jazz Society, Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz, Artists Collective, WWUH, Jackie McLean Institute at The Hartt School, and Hartford Public Library, presents a concert and community celebration featuring the Curtis Brothers & Friends! On February 2, 2025, pianist-composer Zaccai Curtis, along with his bandmates Luques Curtis, Willie Martinez, Camilo Molina and Reinaldo De Jesus, achieved their first-ever GRAMMY® win for Zaccai…

Join us on Friday, March 14, 6:30 pm for a conversation with author Ethan Rutherford to celebrate the launch of his new book, North Sun, or the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther.  “NORTH SUN is a deeply wonderful, strange and magnificent book. I swam through its unique pages with glee and horror and joy and came up for air gasping at what a deeply brilliant writer Ethan Rutherford is. The novel is completely exhilarating.”- Edward Carey, author of Little, The Swallowed Man, and…

  “Robert Carl’s music, to my ear at least, has always felt like the work of a particularly sensitive sonic observer of the world. Originally a student of history before he refocused his efforts into music, his interest in time, memory, and space are veins running through his compositions, his work more given to conjuring imagery than narrative plot. And whether inspiration is mined in the wake of a seascape or travelers on a speeding bullet train, the resulting music…

Join us on Saturday, February 22, 4:00 pm for a conversation with author Kent Dunlap to celebrate the launch of his new book, The Neck: A Natural and Cultural History.  “Attitude and attention, thought and speech, movement and sensation, air and sustenance, they all depend on the neck….Mr. Dunlap’s fascinating discourse travels through anatomy, paleontology, anthropology, the arts, the zoo, museums, medicine, murder and more.” – WSJ A 300-million-year tour of the prominent role of the neck in animal evolution and human culture.…

Join us Sunday, January 19, at 6 pm for an evening of readings and conversation with author Nancy Slonim Aronie to celebrate the launch of her new book, Seven Secrets to the Perfect Personal Essay: Crafting the Story Only You Can Write. Nancy will be joined by fellow writers who will each share their own personal essays: TONY SHALHOUB (UPDATE: Tony will not be able to attend the event on Sunday 1/19.) GLENN BERGENFIELD KATE FEIFFER KATE TAYLOR STEVE KEMPER JULIA KIDD SUZY…

Saturday, December 7, at 7 pm – Real Art Ways welcomes trombonist, composer and arranger Papo Vázquez for our annual concert and holiday parranda. Bring an instrument and get in free! Otherwise, general admission is $10. Parranda de aguinaldo (Christmas folk music), is an Afro-Indigenous musical form played during the holidays in various Caribbean and Latin American countries including Puerto Rico, Cuba, Trinidad, and the coastal area of the states Aragua and Carabobo in Venezuela. Papo Vázquez is a trombonist,…

  An experience of music imagined and created in real time. This series runs from September 2023-May 2024. Check out the full schedule here! May’s Performance Tomeka Reid Described as a “New Jazz Power Source” by the New York Times, cellist and composer, and MacArthur Genius Grantee Tomeka Reid has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in Chicago’s bustling jazz and improvised music community over the last decade. Her distinctive melodic sensibility, always rooted in a strong sense…