Signature Event Archive

Search the Signature Event Archive to discover past Library events. Watch videos, hear speaker interviews, and listen to audio recordings of previous presentations. Search by keyword (event title, subject, or presenter name), location or by date range.
Signature Event Video Video Signature Event Audio Audio Signature Event Interview Interviews
E.g., 2019-01-21
E.g., 2019-01-21

Storytelling Spectacular

Lepp, Cardenas, Lowry, and Washington return for a grand storytelling finale.

Co-sponsored by Metropolitan Community College-Maple Woods.

Ages 10 and up.
 

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Saturday, November 10, 2018
Program: 
7:00 pm
Plaza Branch

City School Fair

Parents seeking a good school fit for their children can visit with representatives and parents from 55 public, private, and charter institutions – kindergarten through high school, all within the Kansas City public school boundaries – at the annual City School Fair.
 
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Parents seeking a good school fit for their children can visit with representatives and parents from 55 public, private, and charter institutions – kindergarten through high school, all within the Kansas City public school boundaries – at the annual City School Fair.
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Program: 
10:00 am to 1:00 pm
Central Library

Storytelling Celebration

The 19th Annual Kansas City Storytelling Celebration features a lineup of lively stories, anecdotes, myths, legends, and lessons.

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The 19th Annual Kansas City Storytelling Celebration opens with a Friday Night Family Fun performance and a ghost-tales session. Saturday’s Storytelling Spectacular offers an array of lively stories, anecdotes, myths, legends, and lessons.
Friday, November 9, 2018
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch

Jazz at Lincoln Center: Presidential Suite

The best political speeches transcend oratory. In such stirring addresses as John F. Kennedy’s “ask not what your country can do for you” and Winston Churchill’s “we shall never surrender,” Grammy-winning composer, saxophonist, and conceptualist Ted Nash detects inherent musical elements—lyrics, cadence, rhythm, and melody.

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The Library streams the latest installment of the Jazz at Lincoln Center digital series, spotlighting Grammy winner Ted Nash’s Presidential Suite. Performed by Wynton Marsalis and an ensemble of other gifted musicians, it transforms key passages from some of the 20th century’s most memorable political speeches on freedom into a lushly orchestrated suite of modern jazz.
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch

Final Act: 2018 Art in the Loop Project

The 2018 Art in the Loop Project: KC Plays!, a curated outdoor exhibition, wraps up with a reception, illustrated review, and reflection on this year’s entries.

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The 2018 Art in the Loop Project: KC Plays!, a curated outdoor exhibition staged in partnership with the City of Kansas City, Missouri, and KC Streetcar, wraps up with a reception, illustrated review, and reflection on this year’s entries. Selected artists present their works and discuss their experiences.
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Reception: 
6 pm
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

Dawnland

Indie Lens Pop-Up
The marginalization of Native Americans wasn’t simply a crime of our country’s distant, unenlightened past.
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As part of the Indie Lens Pop-Up film series, the Library and KCPT-Kansas City PBS screen the 2018 documentary Dawnland. It chronicles efforts in Maine to come to terms with the decades-long removal of Native American children from their families to force their assimilation into white society. A discussion follows.
Saturday, November 3, 2018
Program: 
2:00 pm
Plaza Branch

Thinking Green: A Guide to Better Gardening

You’ve got gardening and landscaping questions. We’ve got answers from a panel of experts on everything from the best fruit and flowering trees for planting in our area to container selection, tomato growing, and how to get the most from your garden labors.

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Three specialists -- Anne Wildeboor of the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens; Mark Gawron of Powell Gardens; and Matt Evans, a consulting arborist at Ryan Lawn and Tree – answer any gardening and landscaping questions you might have.
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Audio

A Fierce Glory: Antietam - The Desperate Battle that Saved Lincoln and Doomed Slavery

There remains a haunting stillness over the grounds around Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland, where 3,650 Union and Confederate soldiers perished on the deadliest day—September 17, 1862—in American history.

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In a discussion of his new book A Fierce Glory: Antietam – The Desperate Battle that Saved Lincoln and Doomed Slavery, historian Justin Martin takes a fresh look at the historically bloody battle that became a watershed in the Civil War. It was a tactical draw, but a Confederate retreat gave Abraham Lincoln the “victory” he sought before issuing the Emancipation Proclamation.
Thursday, November 1, 2018
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

The Library Book

In a discussion of The Library Book, her acclaimed account of most devastating library fire in our country’s history, author and longtime New Yorker writer Susan Orlean details the Los Angeles Public Library’s life and near-death in April 1986 – a calamity that stirred renewed appreciation for the crucial role that libraries play in all our lives.
 
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In a discussion of The Library Book, her acclaimed account of most devastating library fire in our country’s history, author and longtime New Yorker writer Susan Orlean details the Los Angeles Public Library’s life and near-death in April 1986 – a calamity that stirred renewed appreciation for the crucial role that libraries play in all our lives.
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Program: 
6:30 pm
Central Library
Event Audio

An Evening With Laura Kasischke

UMKC Cockefair Chair
Laura Kasischke, a renowned literary multi-talent who has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her poetry and seen three of her novels adapted into feature films, discusses her craft and career in a conversation with Angela Elam of public radio’s New Letters on the Air.
 
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Laura Kasischke, a renowned literary multi-talent who has won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her poetry and seen three of her novels adapted into feature films, discusses her craft and career in a conversation with Angela Elam of public radio’s New Letters on the Air.
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Program: 
6:30 pm
Plaza Branch
Event Audio

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