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With practice, almost anyone can learn how to juggle a ball or two.

Chautauqua is set to engage in a healthy dialogue surrounding race and culture.

Jelani Cobb, a staff writer at The New Yorker covering race, police and injustice in America, will speak at 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday, July 3 in the Amphitheater as part of Week Two’s theme “American Identity.”

Cobb, a Queens, New York, native, has earned accolades like the Sidney Hillman Prize for Opinion & Analysis Journalism and a 2017 Walter Bernstein Award from the Writers Guild of America East. He is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and former director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut.

He is the author of books such as The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress; To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic; and The Devil and Dave Chappelle and Other Essays. His work has previously appeared in publications like Essence, The Progressive and The New Republic.

Matt Ewalt, Chautauqua Institution’s chief of staff, said the Institution needed a voice like Cobb’s as part of this week’s lecture series that focuses on the intersection of social justice and identity at a time when “few things are more critical to the national conversation than race.”

“When we decided on a week for ‘American Identity,’ knowing identity has been the core of our national dialogue throughout our history, but particularly the past couple of years with deeper polarization of the American citizenry in how we define ourselves as Americans, we knew there were a few voices and thought leaders that had to be part of this dialogue,” Ewalt said. “Jelani Cobb is one of the country’s leading thought leaders, particularly on issues of race, culture and identity in the United States.”

Ewalt said Cobb is aware of Chautauqua’s platform because of its prominence in American history and its educated and well-read audience, and believes Cobb wants to engage this larger community in themes around American identity he wrestles with in his work.

“He’s eager to contribute to a dialogue on these issues of American identity, knowing we’d be looking at them through a lot of viewpoints,” Ewalt said. “I think there are many in Chautauqua who are New Yorker readers and familiar with Cobb’s work and respect his thought leadership and incredible gifts as a writer, regardless of one’s policies.”

Cobb stressed the importance of continuing the dialogue about racial injustice and not getting comfortable with the current social climate in his 2015 article “Murders in Charleston.” The article focuses on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, and Cobb wrote that “the daisy chain of racial outrages that have been a constant feature of American life since Trayvon Martin’s death, three years ago, are not a copycat phenomenon soon to fade from our attention.”

He stated a similar discourse in his 2014 piece “The Anger in Ferguson” about the shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old, unarmed African-American, in Ferguson, Missouri, and how common racial profiling is in the United States.

“Yet what happened on Staten Island and in Dearborn Heights, Charlotte, Jacksonville, and Sanford have culminated, again, in the specific timbre of familial grief, a familiar strain of outrage, and an accompanying body of commentary straining to find a novel angle to the recurring tragedy,” Cobb wrote. “The conventions are so familiar that … the hashtag #iftheygunnedmedown began circulating on Twitter, with thousands of tweets pointing to the ways in which incidents such as these play out.”

Ewalt has no doubt Cobb will bring this kind of honest reckoning and wrestling to Chautauqua.

“He’s prepared to have a difficult conversation about race with a predominately white audience, but that dialogue has to happen,” Ewalt said. “I hope, totally recognizing there’s a range of political viewpoints represented in that audience, that we can engage and challenge one another, but in doing so, believe the conversation matters.”

Since declaring independence, America has prided itself on being the “land of the free.” After a fight for liberty, the Founding Fathers had clear intentions to establish a democratic nation of diverse people, far removed from British control.

This freedom, however, has borne its own set of challenges.

At 2 p.m. on Tuesday, July 3 in the Hall of Philosophy, award-winning author and journalist Colin Woodard will address the struggle of defining freedom in modern America during his lecture “American Character: The Struggle between Individual Liberty and the Common Good and the Survival of the Republic.” Woodard’s lecture, moderated by Interfaith Youth Core founder Eboo Patel, marks his first visit to the Institution.

“Are we building a free community or are we trying to maximize individual freedom?” Woodard said. “The raucous nature of many of our conflicts and our internal crises boil down to the clash of those two things.”

Woodard’s lecture will draw from his most recent book, American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good, a 2017 Chautauqua Prize finalist and winner of the 2017 Maine Literary Award for nonfiction. In his book, Woodard defines American freedom as a regional struggle. Given the distinct cultural, social and religious differences that exist within one nation, the attempt to define freedom is often overshadowed by disagreement.

“Where’s the equilibrium point for our particular federation, given our different regional cultures, and how could you build a super majority that would have enough public support through various regions that could carry it forward?” Woodard said. “We’ve done that for decades in the past, precisely because regional coalitions were formed that gave you a super majority. It’s the fact that in recent decades, we haven’t had that.”

In order to reach the “equilibrium point,” Woodard said liberal democracy needs to be redefined and expanded. In a country that once described itself as a melting pot, a two-party system is a feeble attempt at inclusiveness.

“How can you have the Christian right and Ayn Rand libertarians in the same party? Philosophically speaking, they don’t share a lot of fundamental things in common,” he said. “Both parties are coalitions of things that don’t really go together. Realizing that and understanding the actual spectrum of options is a clarifying thing.”

But before citizens can begin rethinking the bipartisan system, Woodard believes the nation’s lens needs refocused. Currently, political conversation is dominated by a desire for power and control.

“American conversation has circled around freedom and a competition with how you secure that,” he said. “The conversation in the past year and a half has been about fear and resentment, which I think everyone should find worrying.”

As an international correspondent in the 1990s, Woodard brings years of reporting, research and reflection to Chautauqua. While working as a journalist in eastern Europe, he covered the aftermath of the Cold War and the region’s struggle to rebuild after the fall of communism.

These experiences, he said, have been used to inform his research on American democracy.

“How do you build a liberal democracy and then how do you sustain one has become one of the things I’ve dealt with throughout my career,” he said. “The past informs the present and only by understanding where we come from can we understand where we’re at.”

Using visuals in the Hall of Philosophy is uncommon; however, visuals are important to Woodard’s lecture.

“We are going to initiate a grand experiment by asking attendees to bring their smart devices with them to the lecture,” said Director of Religion Maureen Rovegno.

Musicians, Anna Berntson said, are always learning how to relate to people and how to communicate with them.

“And in this case, you are learning how to do it within the confines of a weeklong schedule to prepare for a concert,” said Berntson, concertmaster for the opening Music School Festival Orchestra performance of the season at 8:15 p.m. Monday, July 2 in the Amphitheater.

It’s a constant project, Berntson said, but “one you can definitely invest in at Chautauqua.”

Tonight, the MSFO will perform works by Joseph Haydn, Maurice Ravel and Paul Hindemith. Timothy Muffitt, MSFO music director, said he selects the repertoire with the intention of helping the students grow. Giving a concert performance is how the MSFO communicates to its audience in the Amphitheater, but the process of putting the first concert together is how MSFO members learn to relate to one another as collaborators in an ensemble.

Muffit said the first MSFO concert of every season has a Classical-era work because the “transparency and buoyancy” let the orchestra learn how to work together, even MSFO members who are meeting for the first time.

Tonight’s classical selection is Haydn’s Symphony No. 104 “London.”

“Aside from just being great music, it’s really extraordinary music for getting an orchestra to work together … and develop quickly as an ensemble, rather than a group of individuals,” Muffitt said.

On the other hand, Berntson said, the transparency of the piece means any mistake is going to be immediately apparent to the audience.

“Whereas with a larger symphony, stuff can get very into the texture, and it’s easier to hide, so it really forces the orchestra right away to be focused and aware,” Berntson said. “I think the biggest thing is that it teaches us to listen to each other from Week One, and try and understand everybody is playing that way.”

While the Haydn piece is helpful in teaching students about teamwork, “La Valse” by Ravel, and Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis after Themes by Carl Maria von Weber allow MSFO members to stand out with solos.

“There are some works in the repertoire that maybe some parts of orchestra play more of a subordinate role,” Muffitt said. “But in these two pieces, everyone is in the spotlight of one point or another. So, because our MSFO players come here to have a significant involvement, I want to make sure that the first program represented that.”

The Ravel and Hindemith selections are special to Berntson for another reason as well: Both are pieces of ballet music.

“I was a ballet dancer growing up, until I was 17. That was my other career option, so I really enjoy putting it together (as the concertmaster),” said Berntson.

Ian Egeberg, oboist from DePaul University in Chicago, said there is a comradery among the MSFO in “La Valse.”

“In the Ravel, that’s a lot of section playing, like all the winds together. And there is a lot of duets between the principal flute and the principal oboe,” he said. “Some stuff in the Ravel is like full-section playing, which is always kind of fun. You have a lot of people playing the same part.”

That dynamic means that even though 12 people are playing at once, “you want to make it sound like one blended, giant instrument,” Egeberg said.

Muffitt said Chautauquans “will hear a great variety of music” at tonight’s concert.

“They are going to hear a group of extraordinary young musicians that will be the next leaders in their fields,” he said. “It’s a really wonderful opportunity.”

Tonight’s MSFO concert is just the first paving stone the students will place during their nine-week orchestral journey this summer.

And the MSFO members’ time here at Chautauqua is not just about orchestra, Muffitt said.

“One of the great things about Chautauqua as a chapter in their musical training is that they are working in very close proximity not only with other instrumentalists, but with singers, and with dancers, and with actors, and painters and sculptors,” he said. “So they have an opportunity to see other young artists who are really great in their crafts, how they approach the day-to-day challenges of being an artist. I feel like that’s a very positive aspect of our program, and unique aspect of our program.”

Introducing John Shelby Spong the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson was able to publicly thank the man he said “are the shoulders on which (Robinson) stands.”

Robinson, who is the first openly gay priest to be elected bishop in Christendom, attributes the opportunity he had to serve as a leader in the church to Spong, who he said supported LGBT rights before it was popular.

“It is because of that early work that he did and all of the work that built on it that lets me wear a purple shirt today,” said Robinson, who currently serves as Chautauqua’s vice president of religion and senior pastor. “There is no one who has been braver and ready to take whatever came his way for saving the truth.”

At 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 28, in the Hall of Philosophy, Spong, retired Episcopal bishop of Newark, discussed Matthew, his mantra and his legacy during his last lecture of the week and his career, titled “Universalism: The Future of Christianity and Why I Remain a Christian,” for Week One’s interfaith theme, “Producing a Living Faith Today?”

“Today’s the day,” Spong said. “The final address of this week, the final address in Chautauqua, the final address of my life. It has been a wonderful trip, and I am sad it is coming to an end.”

But before he talked too much about the end, he went back to the Jewish roots of Matthew’s Gospel.

According to Spong, when Matthew said to “go and make disciples of all nations,” he placed words in the mouth of the risen Jesus.

“Matthew was sounding the call to a universal humanity,” Spong said. “It meant to go beyond the boundaries of your religion, to go beyond your security system, to go beyond your fears. It meant go beyond the boundaries that you directed in your biologically driven search for survival.”

Matthew was not alone in his understanding of Jesus’ message. When the Gospel of Luke was being written, the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples of Jesus and all the world. The author made sure that it was understood as a universal happening, Spong said.

Then there was Paul. Paul tried to explain to the Galatians what it meant to “put on Christ” in the verse that reads, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Spong said this means human division must disappear.

“Christ must be served in every person,” he said. “There is no longer Jew nor Greek. There is no longer male nor female. That is what Jesus meant and that’s what the original Christ experience was, before we became Scripture defenders, and before the creeds became the essence of our faith.”

While Paul left off there, Spong believes there is a lot more to modernizing Christianity than erasing those dividing lines.

“When charting a new reformation, we must engage in a task of getting even deeper into the vision of universalism,” he said. “It has not only to do with erasing human divisions, but about revitalizing our most cherished beliefs.”

For the reformation to work, Spong said creeds can no longer be used to bring Christians together.

“The Christianity of the future cannot live inside the doctrines of the past,” Spong said. “Doctrines are never a description or definition of our God experience. My experience is my ability to perceive God, but the nature of God is beyond my ability to describe.”

The same thing is true of Christianity’s fundamental doctrine, known as “the Incarnation.”

“That doctrine makes Jesus not unlike the comic strip character Clark Kent who turned out to be Superman in the skies,” he said. “We must move beyond the now irrelevant dualistic patterns and discover the holy at the heart of the human. Incarnation will never give us that.”

With the need for constant evolution in mind, Spong created his personal mantra.

“My mantra is intended only to be my statement at this time, of where I am today (and) the place of which I have arrived on what might be the last days of my journey,” he said. “I want to say something positively, something about the conclusion that I presently hold and bear witness to why I continue to be a member of this community.”

He began by admitting he still has no way of knowing “who” or “what” God is.

“No one can do that,” Spong said. “Why don’t we understand that? That is not within the capacity of the human mind to embrace the nature of God.”

Next, was his belief that God is a source of life.

“As far as we know, a creature who can: define life, contemplates its beginning, anticipates its termination and raise the question of its meaning, is a rare thing,” he said. “So if God is a source of life, then the only way I can appropriately worship God is by living fully.”

God is also a source of love, Spong said.

“If God is a source of love, then the only way I can worship God is by loving, loving wastefully,” he said. “I mean the kind of love that never stops to calculate, never stops to wonder whether the object of its love is worthy to its recipient. It is love that loves not because it has been earned. That’s where I think God is made visible.”

After love, he shared his beliefs about experiencing God.

“If God is the ground of being, then the only way I can worship God is by having the courage to be all that I can be,” Spong said. “The more deeply I can be all that I can be, the more I can make God visible.”

However, there was one last thing he wanted to add.

Although he has been a Christian his entire life, he does not believe it makes him superior to anyone. It is simply a fact of his upbringing, along with a personal desire to continue being a disciple of Jesus.

In the way Jesus, whether being praised with flattery or diminished by the threat of death, remained unchanged, Spong was moved to affirm his faith. In the way that God brought “oneness out of diversity, wholeness out of brokenness and eternity out of time,” Spong realized the version of faith he wanted to spread.

Spong said the only way his mission can be successful is if his mantra is carried out without any set of boundaries.

“Even in the widest variety of our humanity, in our deepest set of beliefs, there is no outcast in this community,” he said. “There can be no one regarded as unclean, no prejudice allowed to operate inside this vision of Christianity.”

Since then, he has answered the call to try to transform the world so that every person living in it will have a better opportunity to “live fully, love wastefully and be all each of them was created to be.”

Now, that job belongs to everyone in the Christian faith who wishes to carry out his vision to fruition.

And to that, Spong said, “Good luck.”

American Legion Band of the Tonawandas’ rich history is coming back to Chautauqua Institution.

The group will perform 2:30 p.m. Sunday, July 1 in the Amphitheater.

Formed in 1929 by World War I veterans and American Legion members, American Legion Band of Tonawandas is a 90-member concert band based in Tonawanda, New York. The band is a diverse group of Western New Yorkers, with occupations ranging from education to engineering; the group is dominated by music professionals and educators.

“It’s a very high-quality music organization,” said David Abrahamian, president and business manager.

Members range from high school students to musicians in their 70s. Abrahamian joined the band in 1969.

The group is volunteer- based and audition only.

“It’s a lot of work to keep a community group like this performing at such a high level because the musicians are all volunteers and placement in the group is by audition process, so it’s not just anybody can come in play,” Abrahamian said.

The band rehearses yearround with up to 30 annual performances, performing between 60 and 70 pieces each year.

“(American Legion Band of the Tonawandas) plays a wide variety of music such as marches, showtimes, classics, overtures, jazz pieces, vocal features, instrumental features, so it’s program music for just about anybody,” Abrahamian said.

The group is no stranger to the Amp stage. They last performed at the Institution in 2016.

“Chautauqua is a very prestigious performance venue,” Abrahamian said. “It has an audience that appreciates quality performances and the facility can accept a large group like ours and really provides a superior listening experience. The group members really feel proud to be invited to Chautauqua — it’s truly a highlight of the group’s performance season.”

Despite the group’s recent appearance on the grounds, the audience can expect some new material.

“The pieces are all new. Every concert is all new pieces, so it’s not like people are going to come and hear the same thing over again,” Abrahamian said. “The Chautauqua program is considered a very special program to the group, and hopefully we put together a program that everyone is truly going to enjoy.”

This season, the band will be performing during Week Two, themed “American Identity.”

Abrahamian said the group will play a number of pieces by American composers, including George Gershwin, Richard Rogers and John Williams, as well as themes from “Star Wars.”

“We are also performing a brand new piece called ‘Voices of America’, and it’s a vocal feature,” he said. “I think that would play into the theme.”

The history of the group also plays into “American Identity,” according to Abrahamian, because of its roots in the military and diverse backgrounds.

President Michael E. Hill led the first Chautauqua Institution Leadership Porch Discussion Wednesday at the Hultquist Center, where he offered an opportunity for Chautauquans to voice questions, concerns and general feedback for the first of many times this season. In his talk on “Strategic Planning Process & Opportunities for Engagement,” Hill provided a comprehensive Q-and-A forum that is a key component of the new planning strategy.

Feedback offered by residents and visitors at the Wednesday meeting will be added to the questions and concerns gathered thus far from gatherings hosted by members of the board of trustees in intellectual hubs around the country such as Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Atlanta, North Carolina and Florida, as well as information gathered by the Institution’s online survey and portal essence.chq.org. Hill said this gathering of information, both from within the gates of the Institution and without, is the first step in determining the rest of the strategic plan, which will conclude at the sesquicentennial in 2024.

“If just a few of us sit in the Colonade and write up a strategic plan, it will fail,” Hill said. “Your participation is a key aspect of our decision- making.”

In addition to the Wednesday meetings, Hill, Chautauqua Institution Board of Trustees Chairman James Pardo and Laura Currie, chair of the Strategic Planning Working Group, will host feedback sessions at 3:30 p.m. every Thursday in the Hall of Christ, where members of the community will be encouraged to voice concerns as well as answer questions about their experiences at and visions of Chautauqua.

The recently embarked upon strategic plan includes a campus master plan, involves a golf course master plan and a waterfront management plan; a security assessment and plan; a diversity and inclusion plan; a strategic financial plan; and positioning research.

On Wednesday, Hill jockeyed questions ranging from comprehensive ticket pricing to potential housing development across NY 394, to expanding the speakers and conversations within the Institution politically. Additionally, Hill spoke about his hope to eventually expand the length of the season in order to increase revenue needed to develop and increase the amount of jobs offered in Chautauqua County.

“If Chautauqua changed from a three-month season to a six-month season, it could potentially cut poverty in the county by 40 percent,” he said. “We have $1 billion in assets, over 750 acres that lay fallow for a quarter of the fiscal year, and we are looking to change that.”

Hill said that he would love to see an expanded season that would allow for extended workforce development, particularly in the area of food service, instead of having to retrain employees every year and then have many of them leave to return to college before the end of the season, which can cause staffing shortages.

One of the most important pieces of the strategic plan is gathering ideas on how to expand the name of Chautauqua.

“A lot of people say that once we get people here, they get hooked. But it’s the getting them here that is the problem,” Hill said.

He hopes to expand the knowledge of Chautauqua across the nation through a few different avenues: speakers providing original lectures that will draw national media coverage, selling recordings of interfaith lectures to places of worship looking to become more inclusive, and constantly creating forums in which current, controversial issues can be discussed.

Through the conversations and feedback gathered during the strategic planning, Hill hopes to lift Chautauqua to the national stage by continuing to challenge status quo thinking and promote discourse surrounding differences.

“We want to both delight and infuriate every person here,” Hill said. “That is one of my chief concerns.”

In the summer of 1994, near Fort Lauderdale, two middle school music teachers were playing golf. Wilner “Wil B” Baptiste, a rising seventh-grader at the time, had no idea that the direction of his musical career would be decided by the outcome of the round.

The winner, a strings teacher, would have Baptiste as a student in his two-week summer program, where Baptiste would learn how to play his first notes on viola. Fourteen years later, Baptiste is now one half of Black Violin, the violin and viola duo known for its blend of hip-hop and classical sensibilities.

Baptiste will join the duo’s other half, Kevin “Kev Marcus” Sylvester, at 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday, June 26, in the Amphitheater as part of Black Violin’s Classical Boom Tour.

Only a few years after that 1994 summer program, Baptiste and Sylvester would meet at the performing arts high school they both attended. After going to separate colleges on full-ride music scholarships, the duo secured the Showtime at the Apollo 2005 Legend title, which helped boost Black Violin’s career to its current height.

The group’s name comes from a 1965 album by legendary jazz violinist Stuff Smith. Smith’s playing was a revelation for Black Violin, and it had a major impact on the group’s sound.

“It was really cool to just kind of hear (Smith) approach a stringed instrument in that way, just relentless, just aggressive. I had never heard someone play like that,” Sylvester said. “So it was very inspiring and it just made us really take our music to the next level and think even further about what was possible.”

Black Violin has toured all over the world and collaborated with major artists like Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Tom Petty and Aerosmith. As the two continue to spread their unique sound, they’re also trying to spread a message of inclusivity centered around music.

“White, black, purple, don’t matter. Young, old, don’t matter, they’re having a good time,” Baptiste said. “And a lot of times, people that are (at our concerts) wouldn’t necessarily be in the same room together.”

That message is personal for Baptiste, who hasn’t found the mainstream classical music world to be very inclusive.

“It definitely changed a lot for me when I got to Florida State,” he said. “I didn’t have a lot of people that looked like me — it was just very different, you know, much more snobby-ish type people. It was just very, very different, so I definitely didn’t see myself playing in an orchestra, you know?”

Baptiste and Sylvester are also using their musical platform to dispel the stereotypes that they defy.

“If you see me walking around on the street, man, you would not assume that I’m a violinist,” Sylvester said. “You’re going to assume whatever you see on TV, and you’re not going to assume that I do what I do, you know what I mean?”

So, Sylvester wants people to come to the show, enjoy the music and have a good time — but he also wants listeners to leave having gained something.

“I want you to just go and leave this show, and whenever you see someone that looks like me, you’re not thinking anything,” he said. “You’re just looking at this person as a human being.”

Brian Sacawa has been a New Yorker his entire life and a musician since the fourth grade. As long as he is a member of the U.S. Army Field Band and Soldiers’ Chorus, those two characteristics will continue to evolve. The field band and chorus will perform at Chautauqua for the 36th time 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 24, in the Amphitheater, and Sacawa will be there, saxophone in hand, marking his 15th year as part of the tradition.

“It is a great honor, as we love the Chautauqua Institution and all of the people involved,” Sacawa said. “This is the first stop on our tour and it is really, really become a part of what we do and it just would not seem like summer for our members without it.”

Since the Field Band’s formation in March 1946, and the Soldiers Chorus in 1957, the group has appeared in all 50 states and in more than 30 countries, with both traveling 100 days annually.

“We travel as much as we do to keep the American people connected with the military, and we just happen to do that through music,” he said. “If you have any questions about the power of music to communicate, about the power of music to, to move people, you won’t after hearing our group.”

The field band and chorus have an extensive repertoire and can perform genres all across the board, but what they have lined up for Sunday’s show serves the explicit purpose of spreading a fundamental message through song.

“The program that we will perform is called ‘the Army story,’ ” he said. “We are storytellers in a way, and what we want people to realize is that the story of the army is actually the story of America itself.”

The program includes music from multiple time periods. Sacawa said the audience can expect fife and drums, World War I songs, rebel Civil War songs, big band music from World War II, the Vietnam era and, of course, music of today and a few patriotic pieces.”

Along with rich sounds and rhythmic movements from the musicians, an additional visual counterpart accompanies the eld band and chorus exclusively for this set.

“The Army story’ is not just speaking and plain,” he said. “We actually have video screens that we travel with, specifically for this program, to help illustrate things to increase the impact that the music and the message has on the audience.”

Reflecting on past tours, Sacawa said the most important resource the band provides is a bridge between a national audience and their armed forces.

“We are all soldiers, and we represent all of the soldiers in the military who are doing hard jobs all around the world on our behalf so that we can live in freedom and have the right to enjoy concerts like the one we are going to play,” he said. “It is so very important for us to be using these opportunities to honor our veterans so that they know and audiences know that their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.”