August 26, 2011 
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Frederick Douglass’ speech “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” came back to life at Chautauqua on Thursday as actor Roger Guenveur Smith recited the abolitionist’s words for the Interfaith Lecture Series.
“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim,” Smith said, reciting the speech.
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August 24, 2011 Comments Off
“There might seem to be a non sequitur in the title of my lecture, ‘The Logic of Secession,’” Edward Ayers said to open his lecture at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday in the Amphitheater. “How could there actually be a logic of taking the United States apart?”
Ayers’ lecture focused on discerning the logic that led the Southern states to secede. As a historian, Ayers has focused on the history of the South.
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August 23, 2011 Comments Off
When Mary Tymeson sat down and started making her estate plans this year, she thought of Chautauqua.
On what would have been the 83rd birthday of Gale Tymeson, her late husband, Mary asked her two daughters — Carol Warmuth and Martha Tymeson — if she could make the Chautauqua Foundation the beneficiary of their family’s variable annuity.
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August 21, 2011 Comments Off
Every morning, 11-year old Mendel Vilenkin wakes up with a kippah on his head. He climbs down from his top bunk, sits next to his bed and pours water over his hands, alternating three times in a ritual washing — known as negel vasser or “nail water” — to begin the day of service to God. Eight-year-old Shmuel also knows the morning rhythm.
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August 20, 2011 Comments Off
It’s Thursday night in the Amphitheater, the evening wearing on now, another popular Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra concert in the books. The audience files out, satisfied, anticipating a good rest in the cooling night air. A nearly full moon illuminates the scene. Quiet replaces hubbub in Chautauqua’s concert center.
Out of sight on the Amp’s busy back porch, Keith Schmitt is thinking about Clint Black, the country superstar who will perform on his stage the following evening. Schmitt, the Amp manager, knows several critical hours lie ahead for him and his stage crew. Final preparations now are in full swing.
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August 19, 2011 Comments Off
George Kembel, executive director and co-founder of Stanford University’s d.school, presented a small gift to audience members during his 10:45 a.m. lecture Friday in the Amphitheater.
Taped to the backs of some seats in the Amp, small plastic bags hung. Inside each one were black dots smaller than grains of sand.
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August 19, 2011 Comments Off
“Today, we’re going to talk about the widow and the judge. I have no clue what this thing means,” Amy-Jill Levine said. “The more I look at this, the more disturbed I get. The good news there is that if I’m disturbed by a parable, at least the parable is working.”
Levine, professor of New Testament and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School, returned to the Hall of Philosophy lectern at 2 p.m. Thursday to discuss the parable of the wily widow and the unjust judge. “Wiley Widow and Unjust Judge” was the fourth in the Week Eight lecture series theme, “Human Creativity, The Spark of the Divine.”
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August 18, 2011 1 Comment
Concert programs in the so-called Golden Age of American Orchestras (defined roughly as the time during which one began listening to orchestral music seriously) often opened with an overture, presented a concerto before intermission and a symphony after.
If Tuesday evening’s Chautauqua Symphony concert didn’t always conjure the Golden Age, the programming strategy largely did so. On the podium was the Bulgarian-born Rossen Milanov making his CSO debut. Milanov’s training has a Golden Age flavor, too. The artistic director of The Philadelphia Orchestra at The Mann Center for the Performing Arts is an experienced opera conductor, the opera pit being the traditional training ground for old-school maestros.
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Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. Over the course of nine weeks, more than 170,000 visitors will participate in programs, classes and community events for all ages—all within the beautiful setting of a historic lakeside village. Learn more →
