The Chautauquan Daily

Since the mid-1980s, Sandra Thurman has been fighting for AIDS education and prevention throughout the world. As director of Emory University’s Interfaith Health Program, she leads health practitioners into different faith regions to bring about community health improvements.

The screen behind Dr. Paul Farmer depicted a Rwandan man with a short gray beard on his chin, his lips curved into a vague smile. He wore blue cloth pants held up with a loose belt that dangled from his fragile hips. He had no shirt, drawing immediate attention to his frail body. His ribs protruded from underneath his skin, his arms nothing but bone covered with a thin layer of skin. In his right hand, he gripped a wooden walking stick. “I said upon meeting this man, whose name is John, ‘We have all the medications that we need to get you better,’” Farmer said.

SLIDESHOW: U.S. Army Field Band & Soldiers' Chorus

A slideshow of photos by Daily photographer Megan Tan, taken as the Rev. Alastair Symington, senior minister at Troon Old Parish Church in Scotland, prepares for Chautauqua's first Sunday morning sermon.

The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra and The Pied Pipers will bring back the “good ol’ days” at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater. The group will play ’40s music with a universal appeal — think Frank Sinatra with a Michael Buble twist.

From panpipes to Persian modes, the Del Sol String Quartet brings contemporary composers from around the world to a chamber music setting. At 4 p.m. today, violinists Kate Stenberg and Rick Shinozaki, violist Charlton Lee and cellist Kathryn Bates Williams will fill Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall with the music of living composers.

Despite their differences, religion and maternal mortality go hand in hand. “We can’t address health issues without dealing with faith communities, and in many of these communities, the most important leaders are faith leaders,” said Ambassador Mark Dybul, the co-director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health law at Georgetown University and the Interfaith Lecture Series’ first guest lecturer.

A man who has tirelessly sought to tackle a global health care crisis by helping one person at a time will speak at Chautauqua today. Paul Farmer is one of the founders of Partners In Health, an international organization that provides medical care and advocates for social justice for underprivileged patients across the world. He will speak at 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater.

SLIDESHOW: Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square deliver two stirring performances in their fourth Amphitheater appearance

The Piano Program at the School of Music is, in a word, unconventional. As piano students introduce themselves to each other and faculty through a private “Play-In” today, they embark on a summer program that will allow them the opportunity to learn adventurous approaches to making music.

The following is a transcript of Chautauqua President Thomas M. Becker’s Three Taps of the Gavel address to the Amphitheater on June 26, 2011. Welcome to this morning’s service of worship and to this ceremonial gaveling that we conduct for the purposes of opening the season and dedicating ourselves to the amazing array of gifts contained within the next nine weeks of the Chautauqua experience.

There are obvious ways to enjoy summer, like swimming, bike riding, ice cream and picnics. But for the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle’s Young Readers Program, the summer — which is full of talking animals, angels, poets, unlikely heroes and adventure — is anything but typical.

After almost a year of construction, trucks are lining the foot of Bowman Avenue for the last time as Rachel Mazza Borzilleri hurries across the porch of the new Hagen-Wensley Guest House, making last-minute adjustments. Borzilleri, the hostess of the Hagen-Wensley, welcomed the house's first guests Saturday, reigniting a tradition of integrating speakers and guests into Chautauqua's daily fabric.

So where is the portrait of Anna Pennybacker, the iconic president of the Chautauqua Women’s Club, who last served in 1937? Is the portrait’s absence and the possibility that it may not return to its prominent position over the fireplace mantle of the Women’s Club living room a symbol of today’s members’ 21st century energy and spirit? That energy and spirit have led to a recent redo of the Women’s Club bylaws creating a board of directors with a chairwoman and a $500,000 clubhouse renovation.

On Sunday morning in the Amphitheater, Chautauqua President Thomas M. Becker will mark the beginning of the 2011 Season with the ceremonial three taps of the gavel. While the gavel has come to symbolize the opening and closing of the Chautauqua Season, the history of “Three Taps” is murky at best, according to Chautauqua historian and archivist Jonathan Schmitz.

When you think of being chaplain to the Queen of England, you don’t normally expect a person who also has a hand in everyday ministry to a young man convicted of armed robbery, but the Rev. Alastair Symington has kept a presence in parish work while carrying a title that only 32 other people hold. Symington will be the chaplain for the first week of the 2011 Season at Chautauqua. He will preach at the opening worship service at 10:45 Sunday morning.