Community

FA Community Series

Falmouth Academy is committed to serving the Falmouth community as a cultural resource, and one of the ways in which we fulfill that commitment is through the Falmouth Academy Community Series (FACS), a yearly speakers’ series that features experts who lecture on topics of global interest. This series introduces the community to provocative and entertaining ideas in a forum that allows interaction; every speaker opens the floor to audience questions, and our audiences are often standing-room only. The series has featured several prominent speakers in past years, including Robert Kaplan, Ambassador Richard Morningstar, Peter Gammons, Beth Schwarzman, Stefan Behnisch and Stephen Prothero. All lectures are free and open to the public, thanks in part to the generosity of the Woods Hole Foundation.

2011-12 Falmouth Academy Community Series

March 28, 2012:  FA Community Series presents Author Geraldine Brooks, 7:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks will speak about her fourth and most recent novel, Caleb’s Crossing,

Caleb’s Crossing is a fictional account of a member of the Wampanoag tribe, Cheeshahteaumauck, the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College (in 1665). Cheeshahteaumauck (called, Caleb) lived on what is now Martha’s Vineyard, where Ms. Brooks and her family moved in 2006.

Her previous novel, People of the Book, was on the New York Times Bestseller List, and her novel March won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006.

August 10, 2011:  FA Community Series presents PBS television celebrity and expert in American Decorative Arts, Leigh Keno.  His talk, “Hidden Treasures,” is from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Mr. Keno, who appears regularly on a popular Emmy nominated PBS antiques appraisal television show,  has written extensively about American furniture and decorative arts, and he lectures throughout the country.  We are grateful to FA ’12 parent Mark Hollander, who is a friend of Mr. Keno’s and who arranged for him to visit Falmouth Academy.

Since he was a child, Mr. Keno has immersed himself in the world of art and antiques. He received a B.A. in the History of Art from Hamilton College. He has worked as the Director of the American Furniture Department at Doyle Galleries in New York City. In 1984, he took dual positions as Vice President of Appraisals and as a Specialist in the American Furniture and Folk Art Department at Christie’s also in New York.  He is an Editor-at-Large for Traditional Home magazine.

In 1986, he formed Leigh Keno American Antiques where he handled a variety of American furniture, folk art and paintings including several masterpieces that set world-record prices at auction. He has helped build some of the best private and institutional collections of Americana in the world.  He continued to operate Leigh Keno American Antiques until the founding of Keno Auctions in 2009, which is based in Manhattan. Mr. Keno is president of this full-service auction house that sells fine furniture, paintings, folk art, decorative arts and jewelry.

In 2005, President George W. Bush awarded Mr. Keno the National Humanities Medal. In 2008, he accompanied First Lady Laura Bush on a History Channel televised tour of the White House, the first televised tour since Jacqueline Kennedy’s in 1962. 

 
For more information about the Falmouth Academy Community Series, please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) at 508-457-9696.