The New Rochelle Public Library has six music and history programs on its calendar over the next ten days, starting with a jazz quartet tonight, Friday, November 13, and ending with a community choir concert on Sunday, November 22. All six take place at the Main Library, 1 Library Plaza, in downtown New Rochelle, and five of them are in the building's Ossie Davis Theater. The library asks people to sign up online for each one, and one has already filled.

The schedule mixes jazz, classical piano, Beatles songs sung in harmony, a session on a single Bob Dylan album, a staged reading of Revolutionary War pamphlets and a concert by adult singers who have spent the fall in a library workshop. Here is the run, in date order.

Friday, November 13: Jared Pauley Quartet

The Jared Pauley Quartet comes back to the Ossie Davis Theater from 7 to 9 p.m. tonight for a set of classic and contemporary jazz. The program draws on music by Bobby Hutcherson, Grant Green and Pat Martino, among others. This is an after-hours event, so the usual entrance is closed: everyone comes in and leaves through the doors on Memorial Highway, which open at 6:30 p.m. Online sign-up stays open until 7 p.m.

Saturday, November 14: Thomas Paine's "The American Crisis"

From 1 to 2:15 p.m., the theater hosts a program built around "The American Crisis," the series of 13 pamphlets Thomas Paine published between 1776 and the end of the war in 1783. Performers will read passages aloud, historians will talk about how the pamphlets kept the Continental cause going, and the audience will be invited to take part. The program marks 250 years since the first pamphlet appeared and is part of New Rochelle's own 250th celebration. The program is aimed at teens and adults.

Sunday, November 15: Pianist Max Hammond

The Sunday Afternoon Concert Series continues from 2 to 3:15 p.m. with pianist Max Hammond, a graduate of Yale College and The Juilliard School who is now working on his doctorate at Juilliard. His Lincoln Center debut came at Alice Tully Hall, where he played Schoenberg's Piano Concerto with the Juilliard Orchestra. The concert is presented with Young Musicians of Westchester and supported by the library's Rudyard and Emanuella Reimss Memorial Fund, with season funding through a New York State Council on the Arts regrant administered by ArtsWestchester.

Thursday, November 19: Liner Notes on "Highway 61 Revisited"

The library's Liner Notes series spends an hour on one record at a time, and on November 19 the record is Bob Dylan's album "Highway 61 Revisited." Musician, writer and radio host Tyler Martinez leads the session from 6 to 7 p.m. in the third-floor Classroom. The plan is to look at the songwriting and the musical decisions behind the album, play selections from across Dylan's catalog and close with a group conversation. The room has reached capacity, so anyone who signs up now goes onto a waitlist.

Saturday, November 21: A Beatles Acoustic Set

Andrew Weiss and Friends play Beatles songs on acoustic instruments, arranged for three voices, from 2 to 3 p.m. in the Ossie Davis Theater. The group has played music festivals and has shared bills with Counting Crows and Rob Thomas. The show is open to teens and adults.

Sunday, November 22: Sing Your Heart Out

The second Sunday concert in this stretch runs from 2 to 4 p.m. and features the singers from the library's "Sing Your Heart Out!" workshop for adult singers, directed by Robert Puleo. The performance is the closing event of the workshop and is followed by a light reception. It is free, open to all ages and made possible by the Lillian Robbins-Rick Englander Memorial Fund.

Getting There

The Main Library sits at 1 Library Plaza in downtown New Rochelle, under a mile from the New Rochelle Metro-North station on the New Haven Line, and within reach of the Bee-Line buses that serve downtown New Rochelle in Westchester County. For the Friday night concert, plan on the Memorial Highway entrance.

The six programs sit inside a busy fall calendar at the library, which also runs story times, computer classes, game nights and art workshops for New Rochelle residents through the week. Its Lumen Winter Gallery is showing pieces from the library's own archival art and illustration collection through December 4.

How to Sign Up

  • Register for each program through its page on the New Rochelle Public Library's online calendar; online sign-up for each concert and the Paine program closes at its start time.
  • The Dylan session is full, and new sign-ups join the waitlist.
  • Questions about the Paine program and the Liner Notes session go to the library at (914) 813-3736. The library's main line is (914) 632-7878.

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