August 18, 2012 
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Director of Education and Youth Services Sherra Babcock spoke on the topic “Deepening Chautauqua’s Educational Impact” at the Week Eight Chautauqua Institution Trustees Porch Discussion.
The weekly topical discussions are held at 9:30 a.m. Wednesdays on the Hultquist Center porch.
Before opening up the discussion, Babcock gave an overview of programs that fall under the responsibility of the Department of Education and Youth Services.
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August 11, 2012 0 Comments
This time of the season has a bittersweet quality. Our schools of the fine and performing arts and some of our professional arts ensembles are performing for the last time during the upcoming week. Throughout the season we have witnessed the many gifts of these companies. In particular, we have seen the arc of development of the festival dancers, the Music School Festival Orchestra, Chautauqua Theater Company, to cite only those featured in the next few days.
Saturday evening you can enjoy Shakespeare’s As You Like It at Bratton Theater at 6 p.m. and move swiftly on to the Amphitheater for the North Carolina Dance Theatre, our resident professional dance company, accompanied by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Grant Cooper, a newly minted American citizen.
It feels somewhat seamless to think of leaving the Forest of Arden within Bratton Theater for a stroll through Bestor Plaza to the Amphitheater, having just heard that in such a place we must find “tongues in tress, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.”
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August 7, 2012 0 Comments
On Sunday evening, Institution President Thomas M. Becker delivered his annual address to members of the Bestor Society and various members of the Institution staff in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall. This year, though the address was laced with the president’s traditional remarks, came a new element: the presentation of The Chautauqua Prize.
Chair of the Chautauqua Institution Board of Trustees George Snyder welcomed those present and began by recognizing Jack and Yvonne McCredie, chairs of the Chautauqua Fund.
The McCredies gave a brief update on the progress of the fund this season and reminded the audience that gifts from first-time donors will be matched dollar for dollar on Old First Night.
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August 4, 2012 0 Comments
Saturday night in the Amphitheater, we will celebrate musical theater as the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, led by our own Stuart Chafetz, joins with the Chautauqua Opera Company’s Opera Apprentices and Studio Artists for a production they title, “Water Matters: Broadway — The Great Wet Way.” The music is from Gilbert and Sullivan, Kern and Hammerstein, Sondheim and Weidman, Lerner and Lowe — a “who’s who” of American musical theater. The extracts or the works’ themes relate to water. The vocal talents on display will be the eight Apprentice Artists who will carry the individual roles and the 18 Studio Artists supplying the choral work. All of those talented musicians were selected for this summer’s program by the opera company’s Artistic and General Director, Jay Lesenger, and his veteran team. Lesenger has a genuine gift for recognizing the combination of vocal talent and dramatic interpretation. He leads the company through an astonishingly rigorous eight-week schedule of rehearsals, recitals, opera productions, cabarets and performances such as Saturday night. It is the oldest continuous summer opera company in the country and a point of artistic pride for this community. Please join us for this joyful, beautiful and stylish concert in the Amphitheater.
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July 21, 2012 0 Comments
Saturday evening in the Amphitheater, you will have the opportunity to witness one of the most significant of all choral works as the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, led for the first time by guest conductor Robert Duerr, will be joined by the remarkable Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus in the performance of Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem.” The performance will feature two guest soloists, soprano Janice Chandler Eteme and baritone Tyler Duncan.
There is in this work a passionate affirmation of life, and a deeply reverent sense of the frailties of the human condition. Christopher Gibbs, in his stunningly comprehensive Oxford History of Western Music, notes that Brahms wrote the work in response to the death of his mother. Brahms quotes from Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible on consolation, acceptance of faith and the transcendence of suffering through love. Gibbs points out that through that quote, Brahms inserted an ecumenical choral composition into a largely Catholic German landscape.
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July 14, 2012 0 Comments
Water matters. The planet has all the water it will ever have. This life-preserving resource rolls through its natural cycles increasingly changed in course and its content by our interactions. We are utterly dependent on water for our life support, for commerce and transportation, technology and energy.
Despite this basic dependency, we have very little understanding of how to sustain and preserve these systems. Fortunately, there is an enormous game of catch-up going on among governments and business and non-governmental research organizations. Throughout the coming week at Chautauqua you will be informed and inspired by speakers that will help you understand the fundamentals of water as a resource and a complex ecosystem. You will also see into some of the innovative and tenacious efforts to build a deeper understanding of the changes and sensitivities of the global water supply. There is an old adage of management: that which is not measured will not change. Measurement activity in this area is ubiquitous.
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July 10, 2012 0 Comments
Almost everyone struggles to fit all that is Chautauqua into one simple sentence. But that didn’t stop Megan Smith from trying during Friday’s NOW Generation Reception.
“It’s the TED conference, only if it was founded in the 1800s. And lasted all summer,” Smith said.
Smith’s description provides a poignant example of a younger Chautauquan’s search for relevance. NOW Generation seeks to connect those ages 21–50 and to provide the resources to allow them to make Chautauqua pertinent to young people well into the future.
The reception, which took place at 5 p.m. at the President’s Cottage, boasted 150 attendees. The first half-hour of the event was social — a time for people to meet, reunite and chat on the goings-on of Chautauqua.
Tina Downey, director of the Chautauqua Fund, was the first of the evening’s speakers.
“Welcome home,” Downey said. “It’s an amazing summer.”
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June 30, 2012 0 Comments
Happy holiday week! The grounds of the Institution will be teeming this week with multiple generations of families celebrating their togetherness amidst the joy of the Community Band, fireworks, Children School Parade, and all manner of spontaneous expression that complements the programming in the Amphitheater, Hall of Philosophy, Lenna, Fletcher and elsewhere. Where on earth […]
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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 →
