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When the Senate investigated decades of work from the FBI and CIA in 1976, they found that these agencies looked into more than half a million Americans who were involved in political activities protected by the Constitution, such as peaceful assembly. 

Most notably, the FBI had sent a letter to Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife with alleged evidence that he was having an affair, and that he should commit suicide or be publicly humiliated.

“But obviously, thank God, Dr. King didn’t fall for that FBI ruse,” said David Rohde, journalist and executive director of Newyorker.com. “But this was an astonishing abuse of government power.” 

Rohde has been awarded two Pulitzer Prizes: one his reporting on the massacre in 1995 of Bosnian Muslims by Serbian forces in Srebrenica and the second for his for his account of being held prisoner by the Taliban for seven months before his escape. His most recent book, published this spring, is In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth about America’s “Deep State.” 

Rohde spoke on Wednesday, July 8, on CHQ Assembly, delivering a lecture for the Chautauqua Lecture Series titled “Does the Deep State Exist?” as part of Week Two’s theme of “Forces Unseen: What Shapes Our Daily Lives.” His lecture was originally scheduled for 10:45 a.m. EDT on July 7, but due to technical difficulties was rescheduled and broadcast at 3:30 p.m. EDT July 8.

A Monmouth University poll in 2018 found that 70% of Americans believe that groups of active government officials are secretly influencing policy in Washington — commonly known as the “deep state” — and a majority felt that unelected officials had more power than they should.

“I completely agree with the premise that our elected officials should have the power in Washington,” Rohde said. “If President Trump today orders an unelected government official to carry out policy, that government official should obey that order. That’s his or her job, unless the order is somehow illegal or unethical. An elected president, a senator and a house member, they should have the power in our democracy.” 

Rohde said that one of the few topics liberals and conservatives can agree on is the existence and dangers of a deep state. Liberals are more likely to cite as evidence the military industrial complex, meaning that certain generals, defense contractors and companies are pushing the U.S. into endless war. Conservatives lean toward the idea of an administrative state, a growing federal bureaucracy that, Rohde said, “they feel is constantly and relentlessly … inserting itself in our lives and taking away our personal liberties.”

The COVID-19 pandemic is spurring the debate of the usefulness of wearing masks, and accusations that health officials are a part of the deep state.

“What’s so extraordinary and very, very tragic this spring and summer,” Rohde said, “(is that) our ability to agree on basic facts, our ability to trust government experts, is a matter of life and death.”

Generations of Americans have been suspicious of a deep state, including in 1976 when a committee in the Senate, chaired by Frank Church (D-ID) and John Tower (R-TX), investigated decades of work done by the CIA and FBI.

Rohde said that the committee found that the FBI had investigated more than half a million Americans involved in legal political activities, and tried to disrupt and discredit them. Groups targeted included the John Birch Society and the Civil Rights Movement, as he had mentioned earlier with King.

Rohde interviewed the chief investigator of the committee, Fritz Schwarz Jr., who attended Harvard. Because CIA agents at that time primarily went to top schools, Schwarz thought he would identify with them more. Instead, he was astonished by how effectively senior CIA officials could lie without being caught, and identified more with FBI officials. What did trouble Schwarz about the FBI officials was not that they were skilled liars, but how they rationalized their actions.

“I’ve seen in my reporting,” Rohde said, “the tendency of human beings to rationalize that they need to break laws, and, in some cases, I’ve seen while covering wars overseas, the need to use violence to protect their country, their way of life, their cultures, their faith and even their family.” 

Rohde then shifted to how Trump’s use of the phrase “deep state” has grown. At first, Trump applied it to the CIA and FBI’s investigations of his 2016 campaign and alleged ties to Russia. When Pentagon officials questioned the president’s desire not to have a group reinvestigated for war crimes, he called the Pentagon part of the deep state. Recently, Trump supporters have also called public health officials part of the deep state.

Trump is skeptical of government in general — as are many conservatives — and believes that government officials work harder for certain presidents, slowly implementing policies for presidents they don’t like, according to Rohde. 

“But the president is sort of a product of his own background. He grew up in New York in a very rough and tumble and hyper-competitive world. … In New York, there’s a sense that everybody in every project has sort of an angle; everybody is exaggerating a little bit what they’re claiming regarding their deal,” Rohde said.

Rohde has interviewed staffers of the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, as well as current and former members of the Trump administration. Rhode said that these sources said that “the president’s view of these scheming civil servants is exaggerated, that it’s not true, it’s not as severe as President Trump says.”

Tom O’Connor, former president of the FBI Agents Association, said that there is a deep cynicism about the state of U.S. politics. O’Connor, as well as other CIA officials Rohde interviewed, felt that their work is used to score political points, and is hidden by politicians when it does not help their cause.

Rohde asked O’Connor if he ever considered running for office, and he said, “No, I’d never run for office. I wanted to do something that actually has meaning.”

“That’s a very dangerous sign, I think, for the state of our democracy,” Rohde said. “And I worry that we’re in a constant cycle of conspiracy theory and revision and fighting, that’s leading us to question basic facts.” 

This questioning of basic facts has been seen through the pandemic. Rohde said that most liberals believe the numbers of COVID-19 deaths is more than what the government reports, whereas conservatives believe that the amount of reported deaths is fewer.

The lecture then shifted to a Q-and-A session with Matt Ewalt, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education, and questions sent in from the live audience. Ewalt asked Rohde what role journalists play in the culture at the moment.

With the rise of the internet, the journalism industry had to change its basic business structure of print advertising. Rohde said this collapse of print ads led to the pressure on journalists to get the audience to watch and click on their work, have exciting headlines, and play on conspiracy theories — while also sticking to the facts.

“And the more partisan reporters are, (as opposed to) just people trying to write great news stories with just facts in them, I think that hurts us,” Rohde said. “Let the columnists throw bombs. And so myself, in my own work, and other colleagues try to stick to the facts as much as possible.”

The last question was about how people can have a healthy skepticism and not drown in conspiratorial thinking.

Rohde advised people to subscribe to their local newspapers and websites, read widely and also read more mainstream news instead of articles on Facebook and social media. 

“Just give mainstream journalists a chance. I think you’ve seen what is out there on the wild, wild web,” Rohde said. “And I think it’s time to give a chance for vetted, traditional journalism.”

As students in Chautauqua’s School of Music, John Milbauer and Nikki Melville played their first duet together in 1992. Now co-chairs of the School of Music’s Piano Program, they have played together countless times, learning the ins and outs of each other as musicians and people. 

With more than 1,600 miles between their pianos, this year’s unprecedented performance put their knowledge to the test. According to Melville, they passed with flying colors. 

“After doing this, I think we can do just about anything together,” Melville said, “(and) never again will I take the energy of him beside me for granted.” 

Milbauer and Melville will give a joint piano recital at 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday, July 8, on CHQ Assembly’s Virtual Porch. 

Instead of playing solo renditions, the duo decided to stick with what they know best. To mimic their usual side-by-side setup, the performance will play on a split screen. To achieve this, one person recorded their part of the duet first and sent it over to the other person, who played along to the first recording. 

“We had no click track, metronome or anything,” she said. “It was really hard. It felt like the first person was playing into a vacuum, while also having to pace themselves to fit the other person’s part in. What you learn is that human beings have very different concepts of time.”

Milbauer and Melville will play three pieces: selections from “The Dolly Suite” Op. 56 by Gabriel Fauré; “Rondo” in A major, D. 951, by Franz Schubert; and “Sonata for Two Pianos,” in D major, K. 448, composed by Mozart. 

The two movements they chose from “The Dolly Suite” are “Le jardin de Dolly” and “Le pas espagnol.” They have performed both together before. 

“Le jardin de Dolly” delivers the enchanting “music of nature,” according to Melville. A phrase from Fauré’s first violin sonata, written some 20 years earlier, also appears in the work. “Le pas espagnol” is an “exhilarating allegro,” Melville said, full of Latin notes and vibrant color.

“They are gorgeous pieces, but we love playing them together because each selection is short and really fun in my opinion,” Melville said. “It’s a great way to set the palate for the rest of the performance. It gets the energy up rather quickly.”

Next on the program is “Rondo,” which Schubert modelled using the lyrical finale of Beethoven’s piano sonata. The theme of the piece echoes Beethoven’s in its similar harmonic pattern, where the melody’s initial phrase is followed by a “bolder ending” in terms of octaves.

Melville said this piece is a favorite of Milbauer’s — and was particularly difficult for her to play.

“Because he loves this one so much, he went ahead and played it first,” she said. “He was playing all of these melodies and rubatos with such expression and trying to fit my accompaniment in that … felt so unnatural. It was a good example of something particularly hard to do in this format.”

For a more “substantial piece,” Melville said they will finish their recital with 20 minutes of Mozart’s “Sonata for Two Pianos.”

“(Mozart’s sonata) is a staple in the two piano repertoire,” Melville said. “I would never call anything by Mozart delicate, but this piece is very finely etched. The decisions are very small. You are making choices about shape and timing and nuance on almost a note-by-note basis.” 

Melville considers this piece a testament to Mozart’s role as one of the most “transparent and exacting of composers.” 

“Playing Mozart is very personal,” Melville said. “Making Mozart really speak is an individual thing, so then trying to do that with two people together  — and finding the place where both people are feeling authenticity in how that piece works, is quite challenging.” 

Just by virtue of circumstances, the performance will be far from perfect, but Melville said its imperfections are part of a larger point.

“It was really important for us to be models of the real world for our students,” Melville said. “I tell my students time and time again, ‘If you wait for everything to be perfect before you decide to perform, you will never perform.’ Own it, commit to it and do your very best. That’s all we can do.”

During the time of Jim Crow laws, elected officials used police departments to keep people of color oppressed.

“So that history is there, it is real. It is still real in the minds of many people who have shared those experiences, has been passed down from one generation to the next,” said Cedric Alexander, the former chief of police in DeKalb County, Georgia and former president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.

Those experiences were seen in the 1990s with the beating of Rodney King and in 2014 with the death of Michael Brown — both at the hands of police. And this strained relationship is still seen in 2020, Alexander said, with the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers.

“So here we are now, in 2020, with the horrible event that we all witnessed in front of us, a murder that took place shamelessly by four officers who appeared to just do have no moral compass, no sense of humanity and an inability to have any compassion to someone who was begging for their life, and even begging for their mother, as life was leaving (their) body — in people standing there on the streets begging officers to let him breathe … even up to the point that he could not breathe anymore,” Alexander said.

Alexander is a former member of President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing — formed after Brown’s death in 2014 — and has served for four decades in law enforcement and public service. He is also the author of two books. He spoke with Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill on Monday, July 6, on CHQ Assembly, delivering a presentation for the Chautauqua Lecture Series titled “Reformation of Policing and Systemic Racism,” opening Week Two’s theme of “Forces Unseen: What Shapes Our Daily Lives.” 

Alexander discussed Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor’s deaths, the former reminiscent of a past of “running down someone and taking them into captivity” and the latter “irresponsible on so many levels.”

These events, as well as many others, led to conversations around change — in private industries, sports, schools and universities, law enforcement and all levels of government.

Hill’s first question was about why the recent protests have not subsided.

Alexander said that forces have been developing over time, particularly in recent years. The protests following Brown’s death in 2014 saw a diverse group of people in attendance. In the protests following Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, there has been a resurgence of young people and multiple generations “who are all taking a stand against racism in this country, against sexism, against homophobia, against all the -isms that are out there.”

Social media plays a role, Alexander said, allowing thousands of people to organize like never before. Social media also contributed to the rapid sharing of cell phone footage taken of Floyd’s arrest and death, which was witnessed by people across the United States, and around the world.

“Anybody who had any type of humanity about themselves, it rips your heart out of your chest, and we knew, at that very moment, that something very different needs to happen in this country,” Alexander said.

People of color often weren’t believed when they told their experiences of racism until body cameras and cell phone cameras were invented, Alexander said. He also said that people are not only talking about change they would like to see, but are also taking action to make change happen.

“I am so proud to be an American. I’m so proud to be a part of a country that is 244 years old, and in spite of the challenges that we … struggle through in our short period of time on this planet, we have accomplished a lot,” Alexander said. “But we still have a lot of work to do.”

Hill asked about the main pillars of Obama’s Policing Task Force, and how they connect with current issues.

In 2014, Obama convened a group of stakeholders to create a roadmap of how to develop relationships between police and the community. That group, including Alexander, traveled around the country collecting information from human rights groups, civil rights groups, police unions, academics and others. Two months later, Obama signed off on the report, issued around the country to help police departments and communities develop bonds.

For Alexander, one of the most important pillars of that project was building relationships, trust and legitimacy between police and the community. He said that public safety depends on communities and police working intimately together, and that many police departments continue to work and improve upon these relationships.

Hill then asked how reform would help police officers lead more balanced lives, coupled with their very difficult jobs.

Alexander said that with such a job, stress is built over time, affecting a person consciously and unconsciously. This stress may cause marital or family problems, as well as aggravate pre-existing conditions. Alexander said that there should be an officer assistance program, which officers can use confidentially, and have a psychological assessment each year or every couple years, “not as a way to get them off the job, but a way to keep them healthy while they’re on the job.”

The conversation then shifted to questions from the audience. One of the questions was about police militarization.

Alexander said that the “military-style look” has its place in American policing only under certain conditions, such as deploying SWAT teams to combat terrorists. He said military equipment is not acceptable as a response to peaceful protesting. 

“So you have some little small town in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, wherever, they’ve got what would appear to be tanks, they’ve got all kinds of weaponry … it gives the impression that we’re at war with our communities,” Alexander said. “We’re not at war. We’re not”

The report from the Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommended that in order to acquire military equipment, police departments needed to show why they needed such items, confirm that they’d been trained in their usage, and demonstrate how the equipment would help the community.

In the past, Alexander said, “(the equipment was) just passed out. No policy, no training, no nothing, and departments just decide” whatever they want, and however it should be used.

The last question was what everyone could do, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, to make America’s democracy stronger.

Alexander said each person needs to take individual responsibility.

“We all of us harbor some bias towards some person, place, or thing. And if we do, we need to be able to acknowledge it,” he said. “And once we acknowledge it, we need to be able to engage it.”

Enrique Granados was terrified of drowning, but his desire to perform led him to the sea.

His 1911 masterpiece, Goyescas, is a piano suite inspired by the paintings of Francisco Goya. Five years later, it was adapted into an opera that received its premiere in New York City. Originally from Spain, Granados embarked on his first-ever ocean voyage to play in America. 

After conquering his American debut, Granados set sail for France. Somewhere along the English Channel, his ship was hit by a German submarine. He and his wife both drowned. 

While Granados might be best known for the irony of his death, Diana Cohen, violinist and founder and co-artistic director of ChamberFest Cleveland, is more focused on what the composer left behind: his “beautiful, unfinished and rarely played Violin Sonata.”

Cohen and her husband Roman Rabinovich, a pianist, will bring the sonata to CHQ Assembly’s Video Platform at 4 p.m. EDT Monday, July 6. Joining them for a second piece is cellist Dongkyun An.

“(Granados’) sonata is like a short story, because you get a huge range of emotion and go from one to another very quickly through one movement,” Cohen said. “You feel like you get to have it all with this piece. Roman and I don’t feel it gets enough recognition for that.”

ChamberFest Cleveland was launched in 2012 by Cohen and her father, Cleveland Orchestra principal clarinet Franklin Cohen. It was intended to create thematic programming for unique chamber music — a performance style that features a small group of musicians with individual roles. 

However, Cohen said the virtual component created space for a “new goal.”

“All of a sudden, we had to take into account what pieces would be easier for someone to take in over the internet,” Cohen said. “That’s harder than it sounds, but it also creates an opportunity to include pieces you might not have otherwise.”

To conclude, An will join Cohen and Rabinovich for Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66, which was composed in 1845. The work consists of four movements scored for a standard piano trio consisting of violin, cello and piano.

The opening movement is cast in a traditional sonata form, with the first theme featuring a foreboding “dark and stormy” emotional tone, Cohen said, indicative of Mendelssohn’s harmonic style.

In the way the piece is orchestrated, Cohen said she believes Mendelssohn wanted the trio to “play the piece like an organ.” 

“It is so lush and passionate and dramatic,” Cohen said. “The intensity of the opening meets a much softer end, which takes you to various places as a listener. Suddenly, you hear a soft but very famous church hymn that becomes more and more grand throughout. This is one instance in chamber music where I really feel like I am playing in an orchestra.”  

For those reasons, Cohen said the piece is an “audience favorite.” 

“People always enjoy hearing the passion in this one, so it felt appropriate to give them something we know they will appreciate as much as we do,” she said.

The trio had to re-record the program three times, a lofty feat as Mendelssohn’s piece clocks in at 30 minutes long on average. Along with a re-do caused by a bow mishap, Cohen said she was met with an unfamiliar struggle. 

“In our previous lives, we had performances and then we had recording sessions — now, they are constantly combined,” she said. “Recording sessions notoriously make people uptight and it takes a certain mindset to perform when you are recording. Many of us get bent out of shape about being perfect because we spend our lives listening to records that have been edited over and over again.”

It’s “all worth it in the end,” according to Jacqueline Taylor, Cleveland ChamberFest’s co-executive director.

“The beauty of it is that the music is what actually gets us to try to adapt,” Taylor said. “If it weren’t for Mendelssohn, we would have no reason to put all of this effort in. It is the end result of hearing a beautiful piece come together that makes us want to figure out how to bring it to life.”

This program is made possible by Jeff and Norma Glazer.

There was a time when colorful pressed glass vases, dishes, cups and more adorned millions of American homes.

“The pressed glass industry was a massive booming industry at one point,” said sculptor Amber Cowan. “There were entire towns, cities really, built around a cut glass factory. Now people just recognize this stuff as tchotchkes, (stuff) their grandma had around her house.”

While many of these pieces are now collecting dust on thrift store shelves, flea market tables and long-closed factories, Cowan’s sculptures bring pressed glass all the way into the new century.

The Philadelphia-based artist is one of four contemporary glassblowers and sculptors reimagining glasswork in Chautauqua Visual Art’s newest exhibition, “Attention to Detail: Glass 2020.”

The exhibition, curated by Judy Barie the Susan and John Turben Director of CVA Galleries, will at 10 a.m. EDT Monday, July 6, on the Chautauqua Visual Arts website. That 3D virtual tour of the exhibition will be available on the CVA website for the rest of the season. Pieces from any of this season’s CVA exhibitions, as well as works created by the School of Art faculty, are available for sale on the website.

“Attention to Detail” can be viewed in-person at the Bellowe Family Gallery in the Strohl Art Center from 1 to 5 p.m. EDT, Tuesday through Saturday from July 8 to Aug. 24.

Cowan has five pieces in the exhibition. To create her large glass sculptures, she starts by collecting barrels of vintage cullet, or glass waste, from defunct glass factories. She then melts down the cullet and transforms it into intricate flamework leaves and florals, which are incorporated into antique pressed glass vases and other pieces she uncovers at thrift stores and flea markets. Most of the glass she works with comes from between the ‘40s and the ‘80s.

The pale pink, greens and blue of her pieces serve as a time capsule back to the heyday of pressed glass.

“Basically all of the colors I use are colors that are no longer being produced anymore,” Cowan said.

Leo Tecosky has four pieces in the exhibition. The Brooklyn-based sculptor draws inspiration from graffiti art with his blown, engraved, enamel and neon glass sculptures.

“I have always loved graffiti as an art form and as a form of social expression, so aesthetically it was a natural jumping off point for me,” he said. “Having appreciated and done some graffiti in my life, I’m using the glass processes to create those graffiti-style forms.”

His work explores the contrasts and surprising similarities between the mediums of glass and graffiti.

“Glass is traditionally known as being fragile, but it’s also extremely durable and long lasting; it doesn’t break down over time on its own,” Tecosky said. “Graffiti is very ephemeral, because it’s just paint on a wall that can be torn down, painted over and bricked over … (but) people do graffiti constantly, so it has its permanence in that way. … They both have these interchangeable plays on longevity.”

In his ongoing “Glass Portraits” series, photographer and sculptor Ryann Cooley examines the evolving relationship between photography and glass.

“They’ve been together since the beginning of photography, through lenses and glass plates,” he said. “Now in this digital world, fiber optics (made with glass optical fibers) are transporting billions of these photographs every day, all over the place. So glass and photography are still intricately connected.”

Cooley has four portraits in the exhibition. Through this project, he seeks to separate the photograph from its subject, turning it into a sculpture of its own.

“When we typically look at a photograph, we don’t think of it as a photograph — we think of it as (its) subject matter,” he said. “I wanted to see if I could make a photograph that could really only be fully understood in person.”

His portraits, actually a conglomeration of five to eight different portraits overlaid into one figure, are hung upside down.

“Just by simply turning the image upside down when somebody sees it they think, ‘Oh wait, something’s wrong here,’” Cooley said. “And now they’re thinking about the photograph and not the subject.”

A thin glass rod with a small orb on the end is placed in the center of each piece. By approaching the portrait, one can see the image reflected right-side up within the glass, in the same way that the human eye perceives images upside down, only to be righted by the brain,

“People who don’t understand how optics work, they’ve asked me, ‘How did you get the image in the orb?’” Cooley said. “And I say to them, ‘I didn’t. You did it — just by looking.’”

“What to me is the Fourth of July?” asked the Rev. Traci DeVon Blackmon. “Will its great principles and social justice be extended to people like me? We live in a nation where freedom has been muted by praxis.”

Blackmon preached at the 10:45 a.m. EDT Sunday, July 5, service of worship and sermon on CHQ Assembly. Her sermon title was “We, too, Sing of Freedom.” Her text was Luke 1:46-55 (NRSV), which she recited from memory.

“And Mary said, / ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, / and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, / 

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. / Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; / for the Mighty One has done great things for me, / and holy is his name. / His mercy is for those who fear him / from generation to generation. / He has shown strength with his arm; / he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. / He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, / and lifted up the lowly; / he has filled the hungry with good things, / and sent the rich away empty. / He has helped his servant Israel, / in remembrance of his mercy, / according to the promise he made to our ancestors, / to Abraham and to his descendants forever.’” 

“Stories and narratives are crafted contextually, socially and politically,” Blackmon said. “How we see these stories may be different, but we see God in all our understandings.”

Blackmon cited Frederick Douglass’ keynote address from July 5, 1852: “What to a slave is the Fourth of July?” 

“He acknowledged the great ideas of the Fourth of July and the hypocrisy of those who enslaved people. I read it every year,” she said. “Freedom remains as distant now as it did then; 168 years later we are struggling with actualizing the freedoms promised.”

She did not deny that progress has been made but said that “equity is not found for the whole (nation). In this confusing and chaotic time, The Magnificat, Mary’s Song, is a text that speaks to us.”

Mary was a member of a poor community that knew religion and politics were intertwined, a people who were familiar with the “divide and conquer” tactics of the ruling class. “There was competition and strife among those who should have been working together,” Blackmon said.

In the midst of this chaos, Mary lifted her voice in song.

“When we concentrate on the syrupy sentimentality of Jesus’ birth, we miss the revolutionary act of God choosing an African, Semitic, Palestinian child, living in a police state to sing against the empire,” Blackmon said. “There was injustice built into that society, too, what Audrey Lorde called hierarchies of oppression.”

Mary sang a song of freedom at a time when the 90 percent of poor people of color were controlled by the 10 percent.

“What does it mean today,” Blackmon asked, “with COVID-19 choking life out of communities of color? What an in-breaking of God (in this song), of love and life,in a community where freedom has not come.”

Mary’s song of hope turns everything upside down. “I grasp for this hope; it is meant for us,” Blackmon said.

The mother of Jesus is often seen as quiet and passive. “Luke sees her as a prophet of the God who shakes up the status quo,” she said. “It is an announcement of God’s revolution and revolution does not come in a time of peace. This announcement will change the order of how we think, act and live.”

She continued, “God chose a 13-year-old girl from a fourth-world country with dark skin, dark eyes and nappy hair. She was a doulos, a servant/slave girl. She is Sally Hemmings, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, a mother caged at the border, an essential worker with no protective mask.”

Blackmon urged the congregation not to get caught up in the poetry or “loveliness” of the words. “It is a revolutionary song, a song of freedom that turns the world upside down. Don’t miss the power of the moment,” she said.

If you miss the moment, she told the virtual congregation, “you miss the movement of God. God respects, exalts, feeds, remembers and helps the poor. God shows up for the poor. Mary’s song is the introit to an economic, political and moral revolution.”

When Jesus first declared his mission to his synagogue in Nazareth, he quoted the prophet Isaiah. Jesus was anointed to preach good news to the poor, free the captives, recover the sight of the blind and let the oppressed go free.

“The Magnificat is for those who are left out, locked out. It is the womb ready to birth a new song,” Blackmon said. “It connects us to the past, to Miriam, Deborah and Hannah. It is in the present and brings us an expectation of things to come.”

God is on the side of those who are left out, those on the borders, those without a safety net, those on the bottom, wherever they are found. God triumphs through the revolutionary act of love.

Blackmon quoted the Rt. Rev. Desmond Tutu from his book God Has A Dream. Tutu wrote that a child of God has to truly understand that God loves everyone. God does not share our hatred of our enemies. God’s love is too great to be confined. “Our prejudices are absurdly ridiculous in God’s eyes,” Tutu said. 

“That is how God triumphs,” Blackmon said. “Jesus came to transform those who hurt and those who do the hurting. This is how we combat the evil ingrained in the structure. The Magnificat speaks truth and freedom because it tells of the inbreaking of Christ and its echo is heard wherever injustice is found.”

There is an echo of the Magnificat in every generation. She said, “It is found in Ferguson, in Staten Island, on a swing in Ohio, in schools in Pakistan. We will sing it even with knees on our necks.”

The tune for the song is not “The Star Spangled Banner,” or “America the Beautiful,” she said. “It is ‘Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us / Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us / Facing the rising sun of our new day begun / Let us march on ’till victory is won,’” she said. 

Mary’s Song came forward again when George Floyd was killed. “Mary’s Song is what the Fourth of July is. I will keep singing, I must sing, until freedom truly comes,” said Blackmon.

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, vice president for religion and senior pastor of Chautauqua Institution, presided from the Hall of Christ. Joshua Stafford, interim organist for Chautauqua Institution, played the Tallman Tracker Organ. Michael Miller, a Chautauqua Opera Apprentice Artist, served as vocal soloist. The organ prelude, performed by Stafford, was “Fugue on the Magnificat,” by Johann Sebastian Bach. Miller sang the gathering hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” The anthem was “How Great, O Lord, Is Thy Goodness,” by Julius Benedict, sung by Miller. The offertory hymn was “I Love to Tell the Story,” by Kate Hankey, sung by Miller. “Magnificat in D,” by Charles Villiers Stanford, was the offertory anthem with Miller as the soloist. Miller sang the choral response “Nunc Dimittis.” Stafford played “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” by John Phillip Sousa, for the postlude. This program is made possible by the Mr. and Mrs. William Uhler Follansbee Memorial Chaplaincy and the Robert D. Campbell Memorial Chaplaincy Fund.

Stuart Chafetz has had a lot on his mind. 

With the Fourth of July being commemorated during a global pandemic, an economic depression and a national reckoning of historic and persisting racism, Chafetz faced a daunting question: How do you celebrate a nation in turmoil?

“You make it relevant — nothing less,” Chafetz said.

Chautauqua’s reinvented Independence Day Celebration will take place at 5 p.m. EDT Saturday, July 4, on CHQ Assembly’s Video Platform. It features Chafetz, principal pops conductor for the Columbus and Chautauqua Symphony Orchestras, as well as returning soloist Capathia Jenkins and newcomer Tony DeSare, a jazz singer, pianist and songwriter. 

The evening’s setlist includes patriotic classics, such as the CSO’s socially distanced rendition of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” 

“We are going to end the program with that one because I think it will be nice for our audience to get to see some familiar faces on a day they look forward to so much,” Chafetz said. 

The program also includes a brand new addition, “CSO Forever.” The piece is a march Chafetz had arranged by Sam Shoup, while Chafetz shifted his focus to writing the lyrics with his wife, Ann Krinitsky, who is the music director of the Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra. Shoup is an arranger for the National Symphony Orchestra at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, as well as the New York Pops Orchestra, Houston Symphony and the Memphis Symphony Orchestra. 

DeSare will be singing the “Chautauqua-centric” piece, Chafetz said. As someone who hasn’t missed a summer at Chautauqua since 1996, Chafetz said creating the march brought him “joy that filled the absence.” 

“I am proud to say this is the first time I have been credited as a lyricist,” Chafetz said. “The goal is that it becomes a new tradition, just like popping the bags during the ‘1812 Overture.’ Everyone knows Chautauqua audiences are the best at singing and participating. I hope this brings them the joy it brought me.”

As a tribute to the state of New York, DeSare said he will sing Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind.” 

“Stuart, Capathia and I are all from New York,” DeSare said. “It has been hard to see all the state has gone through since it was hit so hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, a state all three of us love so much. We wanted to honor its strength, as I am sure those in Chautauqua want to as well.”

In addition, he will sing Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind.” 

“We wanted to provide variety, and I definitely think that’s what the audience is getting,” he said. 

For Jenkins, a Black musician and actor, this Independence Day celebration presented an opportunity she said she’s been “longing for.” Since the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who was killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest on March 25, Jenkins said she has been “fighting to get back into the light,” something she only knows how to do through song.

“There is a moment in the (recorded performance) where I just talk about how, with all of the civil unrest, I have been personally managing — managing a deep sadness, a frustration, an anger, a rage,” Jenkins said. “There have been days where I have just cried all day over the killing of unarmed Black people. My heart is just wrenched in a way I didn’t even know was possible.”

As a “healing balm” for “our souls and our spirits,” Jenkins said she will sing “Amazing Grace” and “What a Wonderful World.”

“Even with the unrest I just mentioned, I am deeply hopeful,” Jenkins said. “I am hopeful for our future. I am hopeful for our nation. As hard as it may be and as many scars as we may have, every time I have been able to stand with an orchestra for the Fourth of July, I am reminded that we live in a beautiful country. There is so much more ahead of us than what we have left behind us. I believe that. I believe that to survive. That belief is worth celebrating.” 

Chafetz said Jenkins’ contribution to both the performance is “valuable beyond what words allow.” 

“What she has to say regarding the moment in history we are in is extremely relevant and this summer, that is what this celebration needed to be — relevant to our country, relevant to our time,” he said. “I feel so fortunate to still be able to communicate that, the love of music and the love of the CSO, however brief it may be.”

Chautauqua Institution historian and archivist Jon Schmitz will commence the 2020 Heritage Lecture Series at 3:30 p.m. EDT Friday, July 3, on the CHQ Assembly Video Platform with a presentation on the history of the Chautauqua movement.

In ChautauqWhat?: A historical overview of Chautauqua, Schmitz will share the 150-year history of the Chautauqua Movement and what makes the Institution unique. 

The movement began in 1874 with the establishment of the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly as an experiment in “vacation” learning that took place outside of school. It grew to the Chautauqua Institution that currently exists, fostering life-long learning, religion, art, and music. 

As the Institution grew, “Daughter Chautauquas” emerged across the country to replicate the western New York organization. At the peak of its popularity in 1915, an estimated 12,000 communities had hosted a Chautauqua. This practice died down in the following decades, but the Institution remained. 

Just as the Daughter Chautauquas brought programming into people’s communities across the country, the Institution is doing the same through its virtual 2020 season — a season that Schmitz called unprecedented.  

“(The pandemic) makes this the most exceptional season without question. There has never been a year before when the program was canceled,” Schmitz said. “It’s never been radically affected by wars, or pandemics or economic problems.”

When world events have interfered with programming in the past, it was small compared to the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the 2020 season. For example, Schmitz said in years past the opera schedule may have been abbreviated, or the season cut short by a week. But, in-person programming has never been outright canceled.

Schmitz said he hopes that this historic year will allow the audience and community to reflect on what the Institution is and stands for. 

“The significance of it is that it will cause people to think more seriously about what Chautauqua is, what it is to them, what they want from it, and what they expect to have from it,” Schmitz said. “At what point is Chautauqua no longer Chautauqua?”

The season will see further programming from the Oliver Archives Center about Chautauqua’s traditions and history, with two films from 1923. Schmitz is welcoming three guests to the platform for lectures this season: author and public speaker Rick Swegan, Chautauqua Institution Archives Assistant Emálee Krulish, and North Carolina State University Professor Emeritus Gary Moore. 

Schmitz prides himself on the work of the Heritage Lecture Series, welcoming speakers who are truly passionate about speaking at the Institution. The speakers are not offered stipends, so there is no incentive other than a desire to speak at the Institution. 

“That tends to bring very good speakers. Speakers in the Heritage Lecture Series really make an effort to work up their presentations. They take it very seriously that they’re speaking,” Schmitz said.

One main draw for speakers is the audience they will be speaking to. Schmitz said that the Institution hosts “one of the best audiences in the world.” 

“Chautauqua audiences are attentive. They are patient. They are really very sophisticated,” Schmitz said. “It’s so strange to talk when you’re speaking to a Chautauquan audience. You’re speaking to people who are professors from well-established universities to people who are entirely new to the subject.”

The Heritage Lecture Series will premiere a new presentation at 3:30 p.m. EDT every Friday this season on CHQ Assembly.

Ray Chen was networking globally before it was cool.

Chen, along with his extensive repertoire, has accumulated more than 400,000 followers on social media, including 236,000 Instagram followers and 131,000 YouTube subscribers. 

According to Vice President of Performing and Visual Arts Deborah Sunya Moore, that media presence is breaking boundaries for classical music, allowing the “golden age” to survive in the digital age, too. 

“I think it is just serendipitous that we had Ray scheduled for opening night,” Moore said. “I love that he has every bit of classical training and excellence that you could ever want, but that he’s doing it differently with his incredible following. So much of who he is, is about sharing the music.” 

Chen, a violinist, will debut his solo performance in “An Evening of Music and Conversation with Ray Chen” at 8:15 p.m. EDT Thursday, July 2, on CHQ Assembly’s Video Platform. Chen was originally scheduled for an opening night performance with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra before the Institution’s Board of Trustees decided to suspend in-person programming. 

In 2012, Chen told the South China Morning Post he developed his love for music at an early age thanks to support from his parents, who gifted him a violin on his fourth birthday.

“I began violin at the age of 4 simply because I had a love for the instrument,” Chen told the South China Morning Post. “My first teacher played a huge role in this; her entire family taught the Suzuki method and each week their home would turn into a music school of sorts.”

Four years later, he was invited to perform at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics’ opening celebration concert in Japan, where he realized he wanted his gift to be a lifelong career. “This was my first ‘tour’ overseas, and I remember thinking to myself at the time, ‘Man, I would love to do this for the rest of my life,’” Chen told the South China Morning Post. “It was a few more years later, however, that I made the conscious decision to rearrange my priorities and put violin first before everything else.” 

His decision to put violin at the forefront of his life paid off. Chen went on to win the National Youth Concerto Competition in Australia in 2002, the First Prize at the The Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists in 2008 and another First Prize at the Queen Elizabeth Competitions in 2009. 

“He is so accomplished, but throughout those accomplishments, he has always worked to create something for a community instead of just himself,” Moore said. 

Moore said Chen is “planning solo Bach” for Thursday’s performance. Chen will perform the entirety of his program live, while also incorporating Discord, an instant messaging and digital distribution platform used to create communities ranging from gamers to businesses. 

Even though the pieces will be from the canon of musical classics, Moore said the experience will be anything but traditional — perhaps even approaching “total anarchy.”

“He showed us Discord in a technical meeting and took us in and out of practice rooms where about 100 people were hanging out,” Moore said. “These classical music enthusiasts were there not only to support him, but to support each other. I am excited that it will be open so his Discord community can engage in his Chautauqua performance.”

When Chen is done with his performance, Moore will host a 20-minute Q-and-A, where she plans to have a “content-rich discussion” with the violinist. 

“I am guessing it is not just going to be about Bach — it’s going to be about artists in this time and how Ray is leading the way,” Moore said. “I am excited to hear from him how he sees this period continuing to evolve the field of classical music. The world has been scrambling to stay relevant during this time and it seems as though we need him in this moment.” 

This program is made possible by The Boyle Family Fund for the Performing Arts.

Climate change, the pandemic and systemic racism intersected in Rabbi Nate DeGroot’s lecture, “Tikkun Adam(ah): A Jewish Response to a World in Upheaval,” on Tuesday, June 30, on CHQ Assembly’s Video Platform. DeGroot was the first speaker for this season’s Interfaith Lecture Series, and for Week One — “Faith to Save the Earth” — after the Monday lecture was postponed due to technical difficulties.

DeGroot opened with how easy it is to misunderstand one person’s effect on the environment.

“At the end of the day, I can’t break the forest or raze a mountain,” DeGroot said.

But DeGroot cited the Arctic’s temperature rising to 100 degrees Fahrenheit a week prior, and that 19 of the last 20 years have been the hottest on record as reasons that people need to understand their effect on nature.

“And so it is — clearly, I believe — past time to rethink our relationship to nature,” DeGroot said.

DeGroot serves as associate director and the spiritual and program director of Hazon Detroit, a city branch within an international Jewish environmental organization that encourages the Jewish community to reconnect to nature through its initiatives. In Hazon Detroit’s case, DeGroot said that it also serves a supporting role for the city’s Black and Native communities. 

During the Q-and-A, DeGroot said these communities have been underserved in the past and present due to white flight, including the Jewish community leaving for the suburbs after the 1967 Detroit rebellion. As a result, Hazon is reconnecting with those communities left behind, which have created self-sufficient networks like community gardens. 

DeGroot said that with a live audience, he often asks questions aloud for people to answer in real time. He did it anyway and asked his audience to answer to their screen as if they were watching “Jeopardy” while he called on imaginary audience members.

“What is the Hebrew word for nature?”

Whoever answered got it right on the first try — “teva.” The last two questions were harder to answer for his imaginary live audience.

“Teva” was first recorded in Jewish thought in the 12th century. It is never used in the Old Testament while describing creation, the Garden of Eden, or Noah’s Ark, nor used in the Psalms.

Jewish texts had no word for nature until then, because at the center of Judaism, “there was no distinction between God and the natural world,” DeGroot said.

No word could contain the eternal, but Judaism revolves around “intimate relationships with nature,” its whims and its weather patterns.

Agricultural seasons frame Jewish holidays. The setting of the sun until only three stars are in the sky marks the end of Shabbat, or Sabbath. Early prayers for rain were paired with dancing and holding willow branches and palm fronds.

Nature was only a “garb” in which God was dressed.

“(By this definition) how we treat nature is a direct reflection of how we treat God, and perhaps vice versa,” DeGroot said. “If God and nature cannot be separated, then every toxic fume that gets puffed into the air is filling God’s lungs with smoke.”

DeGroot quoted the fifth book of the Torah as a warning of what happens when people deny connection between faith and nature.

“If we follow the Commandments, then Deuteronomy says ‘The rains will fall in their season, our harvests will be abundant, our cattle will have ample food to eat and we shall be sated,’” DeGroot said. “But if we stray, and worship idols, and profane and forget what is most sacred in this world, God’s anger will flare up against us. Until the skies above our heads turn to copper, and the earth below our feet becomes iron, the rain of our land will be dust and sand will drop on us from the sky until we are wiped out.”

DeGroot clarified that this was not a “prescriptive” solution from God, but a natural outcome of people’s actions — or lack thereof.

“This is not God punishing us for straying; rather, these lines are descriptive,” DeGroot said. “The natural result of our own careless and callous actions — which, by the way, much like warnings from the latest U.N. Climate Report — teach us that when we neglect the sacred, the sacred will just as quickly neglect us.”

Linking science to the sacred, DeGroot suggested there is a new way to take God for granted.

“When we live outside the right relationship with the natural world, and puff toxic fumes and spew deadly toxins and etch the Earth with oil, we curse ourselves,” DeGroot said. “Is this not what it means to take God’s name in vain in a 21st-century context? And when we hurt nature, the Deuteronomy text makes clear that not only are we hurting God, but we are also hurting ourselves.”

DeGroot called for a Tikkun Adamah. Tikkun is a healing, while Adamah refers to “the dust of the earth” from which God formed Adam.

“Today we are in need of what in Hebrew is called a Tikkun, a kind of mending, fixing, repairing,” DeGroot said. “Tikkun Adam, a healing of the self, and Tikkun Adamah, a healing of earth.”

DeGroot said climate change has compounded recent events like the coronavirus pandemic and “other pandemics” of systemic racism, extractive capitalism and white supremacy.

COVID-19 specifically proved to DeGroot that the world is interconnected, and as a result, demands people care for each other.

“As a resident of Detroit, one thing was clear: that however bad COVID was going to get generally, Detroit would be hit harder than most because the largest majority of Detroit — the largest majority-Black city in the country, like the residents of many other industrial rust belt cities and urban communities — have seen their neighborhoods systematically divested from for well over 50 years,” DeGroot said.

He noted the breakdown of basic infrastructure, systems and support networks coinciding with white flight in the ‘60s and ‘70s, which left the remaining communities with little support.

“(This) means residents now are left severely lacking in what many of us probably assume are basic services, and (they) are therefore far more susceptible to COVID,” DeGroot said.

Finding healthy food and going to the hospital is more difficult due to the lack of public transportation. Water shut off in thousands of homes prevents families from being able to practice good hygiene or stay hydrated. Those who become sick might fear going to the hospital because they can’t afford treatment or are turned away when they most need care. 

Detroit also has had the worst broadband connection of all cities in the United States since 2015, according to the FCC. Detroit public school students suffer from the school system’s lack of funding, so continuing education without the necessary technology proves “basically impossible,” DeGroot said, while more well-off students continue unphased.

Detroit also has the highest rates of asthma in the state of Michigan.

“This is just one example of the many underlying health conditions caused by environmental racism that generations of Detroiters face,” DeGroot said. “Detroit has the highest Black population of any city in the U.S., (and) suffered from the third-most coronavirus deaths in this country.”

One pastor who Hazon Detroit works with has lost 14 family members to the coronavirus.

“None of this is by accident,” DeGroot said. “But rather, this is what happens when people put profit over populace.”

DeGroot told the story of the Tower of Babel, the second example in Jewish texts where humans challenged the divine. According to midrash writings (or narrative interpretations of the Torah and the books of prophets) as the tower to reach God grew higher, it took a year for someone to climb up to add a precious brick to the top. When someone would fall to their death by accident, “bricks became more precious than people” and those below mourned the ruined bricks instead of the person who carried it.

“It is not a sin to build,” DeGroot said. “It is a sin to build towards a perverted cause, to build towards any vision other than the holiness of life and the celebration of the sacred.”

DeGroot likened current affairs with the sin of Babel.

“Our country’s reality of this lived midrash began with genocide and the forced misplacement of Native people, and was built by the hands and ingenuity of Black people taken from their homeland and brought to these shores to be brutally exploited as property,” he said. “… While the circumstances have changed over the years, the structural underpinnings of our society have not.”

DeGroot quoted an opinion article by Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, the North America Director of 350.org which supports anti-fossil fuel organizers and campaigners in the United States and Canada, titled “If you care about the planet, you must dismantle white supremacy.”

She wrote that communities getting hit the hardest by COVID-19 and climate change are also affected by over-policing, incarceration and state-sanctioned violence, which includes “sacrifice zones” of neighborhoods near toxic factories and fumes that have increased multi-generational rates of asthma and other health conditions in these communities.

“This adds a grim familiarity to the death-throe pleas of ‘I can’t breathe,’ made by both George Floyd and Eric Garner while they were choked to death by police in Minneapolis and Staten Island, respectively,” O’Laughlin wrote. “… Are you willing to hold accountable all of the systems built off white supremacy — from the fossil fuel industry to racist policing to the prison industrial complex — in defense of the planet? Are you willing to interrogate your complicity in the systems built on white supremacy and commit to dismantling it?”

DeGroot likened this to the exodus of the formerly enslaved Israelites from Pharaoh’s Egypt.

“According to the Midrash, the Israelites’ true and lasting liberation comes not only from the physical leaving of Egypt, but from the Israelites’ emphatic refusal to no longer worship the false idols of Egyptian rule,” DeGroot said.

DeGroot ended with one last call for Tikkun Adam and Tikkun Adamah — the healing of the soul of the people as well as the soil — to soften hearts enough to enact physical change; end false gods of extraction; and follow leaders of the new movement when the world reaches the other side of this moment.

“Nothing less will do,” DeGroot said.

For the first Cocktails, Concerts and Conversations of Chautauqua Theater Company’s season, they’ll be discussing and celebrating a company success: a play that CTC has nurtured from its inception is on its way to Broadway.

Noah Haidle is the playwright behind Birthday Candles, a play that was workshopped at Chautauqua Institution in 2017 as a part of the New Play Workshop program. 

“Noah Haidle has a gift, unlike any other playwright, to look at the world in a timely way, meaning he’s aware of the ticking of mortality,” said Chautauqua Theater Company’s Artistic Director Andrew Borba. “It is life-affirming.”

Originally commissioned by Detroit Public Theater, Birthday Candles came to Chautauqua three years ago as a freshly written work of art, ready to be polished. The story follows a woman, Ernestine, from her 17th birthday through to her 117th birthday, and acts as a commentary on the passage of time, mortality, family and community. The play has been supported from the very beginning by CTC Managing Director Sarah Clare Corporandy (who also serves DPT as producing artistic director) — and by former CTC Artistic Director Vivienne Benesch, the play’s director from its time as an NPW, to its world debut at DPT in 2018 and, this fall, when it makes its Broadway debut. 

“We are thrilled by the treasured collaboration between Detroit Public Theatre and Chautauqua Theater Company,” Corporandy said in a 2019 CTC press release. “Noah is a vastly talented artist and because our communities are intertwined, as are my roles within the two theaters, we have been able to support this play at every step of the process.”

The NPW program at Chautauqua offers the chance for original plays to be workshopped and developed, and to eventually be performed in Bratton Theater for Chautauqua audiences, often a jumping-off point for partnerships with other theater companies across the country. 

With its spring debut delayed because of COVID-19, Birthday Candles will make its Broadway debut when the industry reopens at the Roundabout Theater Company with Benesch at its helm, starring Debra Messing, an actor best known for her leading role in the NBC sitcom “Will and Grace.” This will be Messing’s second appearance on Broadway, after her appearance in John Patrick Shanley’s Outside Mullingar in 2014.

Birthday Candles’ rise through the ranks of prestigious theater will be the topic of discussion for Cocktails, Concerts and Conversations at 5 p.m. EDT, on Wednesday, July 1 on the Virtual Porch. 

The conversation will be hosted by Borba, and will feature both Haidle and Benesch as guest speakers as they discuss the process of production, all the way from the NPW to Broadway.

Borba is excited for Chautauquans to tune in to the conversation, emphasizing the need for a sense of community at this time. 

“What occurred to me instantly is that this play is the play we all need to see when we come back out of COVID,” Borba said. “It’s about looking at life from a universal perspective.” 

He said he hopes that the audience will be able to feel what he felt when he spoke with Benesch and Haidle to pre-record the event. 

“We have a lot of fun. There’s a lot of love in the room, and I hope that the audience will pick that up,” Borba said. “We are there to literally come into a living room and have a cocktail and have a conversation about theater. We are all missing our sense of community, and I think this brings people together.”

Inside “Origins” the 2019 Signs and Symbols exhibition from Sharon Louden and Hrag Vartanian. Courtesy of the artist and Signs and Symbols, New York. PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER GALLO.

As the owner and director of Signs and Symbols, a performance-based art space and gallery, Mitra Khorasheh has faced unique complications in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“(My program) is very conceptual and ephemeral, and really relies on in-person interaction,” she said. “Not every artist is able to adapt their performance to a virtual space.”

It was her belief in the power of live and site-specific art that inspired Khorasheh to create Signs and Symbols in the first place, starting as a nomadic art collective in 2012 and, since 2018, a New York City gallery.

“There needs to be a dedicated space within the gallery world for artists that are performance (based),” she said, “because usually each gallery has just one or two (performance artists).”

Khorasheh will kick off the Chautauqua Visual Arts Lecture Series with a live talk at 6:30 p.m. EDT, Tuesday June 30, on the Virtual Porch.

She plans to discuss her approach to curating performance art and give the School of Art’s Emerging Artists insight on how to work with galleries and approach them for representation.

Khorasheh was introduced to Chautauqua through Sharon Louden, the School of Art’s Sydelle Sonkin and Herb Siegel Artistic Director of the Visual Arts.

“Access had always been really important for Sharon,” she said.

Louden and Hrag Vartanian, a Core Mentor at the School of Art this season, worked with Khorasheh last fall to put up their exhibition, “Origins,” at Signs and Symbols. The immersive, site-specific installation was a runaway success.

“We had people lined up for blocks to get in,” Khorasheh said. “It was amazing, we had no idea what it was going to turn into.”

Khorasheh calls Signs and Symbols a “non-gallery gallery,” because she works with artists to put up their exhibitions without requiring exclusive representation, encouraging experimentation and artistic development.

“It’s really a community,” she said. “(I work with) artists that I’ve had relationships with for years, since before I opened this space.”

The gallery closed to the public on March 14, as New York City went on lockdown. It is currently open by appointment only.

“It’s going to take a while for people to feel comfortable (again),” Khorasheh said.  

In the meantime, while she’s been holed up in her apartment, Khorasheh has worked to put together a number of socially distant projects for Signs and Symbols, such as screening a different solo video piece every two weeks through the gallery website.

“Most of the videos I selected were meant to be viewed on a screen in a gallery with headphones,” she said. “It’s really interesting because (the videos) are able to get a much wider reach than if they were in the gallery. Each video has 500 to 600 views.”

Additionally, to raise money for the gallery, Khorasheh created a Signs and Symbols postcard project. For $35, anyone interested can purchase a unique piece of postcard-sized art created by a Signs and Symbols-affiliated artist. The art is a mystery until it arrives in the mail.

“Then you can write back, and (you and the artist) can social-distance connect,” Khorasheh said.

She plans to keep working on new virtual projects for as long as is necessary.

“It’s day-by-day right now,” she said. “It’s been a challenge.”

This year, more than 500 third- and fourth-graders in Chautauqua County had a chance to do something unique; they had a chance to become a playwright, and to have their work performed by professional actors. 

And when those plays debuted last week on Chautauqua Institution’s YouTube page, Vice President of Performing and Visual Arts Deborah Moore said she was proud of the participating students. 

“We believe that writing a play is not only an act of creativity but also an act of bravery,” Moore said as she introduced the plays. 

The Chautauqua Theater Company will kick off its 2020 Brown Bag series at 12:15 p.m. EDT Tuesday, June 30, on the Virtual Porch with “The CTC Young Playwrights Project goes to the movies!”

YPP, now in its sixth year, partners the Institution, CTC and Florida Studio Theatre with area elementary schools to provide students the opportunity to create and write plays that have a chance of being performed by CTC conservatory members. This year, the CTC worked with third- and fourth-grade students from C. C. Ring Elementary School (Jamestown), S.G. Love Elementary (Jamestown), Chautauqua Lake, Westfield and Panama Elementary Schools. This year, YPP is made possible by the Court Family Endowment for the Literary Arts, Paul and Marnette Perry, Mark and Patt Suwyn & David and Nancy Moore.

This year, 522 plays were submitted and read by volunteers who chose 11 to be produced in a “film festival” for the season. Because the plays were unable to be performed live, the project’s long-time director Katherine McGerr and CTC Artistic Director Andrew Borba pivoted to a virtual stage instead of a physical one. 

“Although we will be presenting these this year in a much different format than we normally do, I still think they capture the imagination, the creativity and even the brilliance of these young playwrights,” Borba said. 

The 11 selected plays were performed by CTC conservatory actors and directed by McGerr, and were broadcast via YouTube to Chautauqua Institution channel subscribers on June 19. 

“We were thrilled to continue this important project through a new medium,” said Sarah Wansley, CTC’s artistic producer.

The Brown Bag discussion on June 30 will cover the transition of the program from in-person to the virtual world, and will feature McGerr as well as several actors who appeared in the plays. 

Borba and McGerr will talk with two of the participating actors, Blake Segal and Octavia Chavez-Richmond, both of whom are CTC alums. One of the selected plays will be screened during the broadcast, and audience members are encouraged to interact. 

CTC Artistic Producer Sarah Wansley says they plan to speak with the actors “about their experience of creating digital interpretations of the students’ very imaginative plays,” and looks forward to interaction with audience members. 

Moore called the students “inspirational.”

“We believe in the youth of Chautauqua County, and we believe in their creativity and we believe that we can be inspired by them,” she said.

Viewers are encouraged to watch the YPP film festival beforehand, and will have the opportunity to ask questions and share thoughts and opinions during the discussion. 

Editor’s note: These are the prepared remarks for Chautauqua Institution President
Michael E. Hill’s annual Three Taps of the Gavel address, delivered Sunday, June 28, 2020 in an empty Amphitheater as part of CHQ Assembly, prior to the beginning of the Service of Worship and Sermon.

“Good morning, and welcome home to Chautauqua.”

These are the words I have ordinarily used to open our assembly in the first four years I have been fortunate enough to serve as Chautauqua’s president. But this year is anything but ordinary. What you can’t see beyond me is an empty Amphitheater, which can seat up to 4,500 people. Our grounds in Western New York are traditionally populated with between 7,500 to 10,000 people on a day like this. My best estimates are that we have approximately 1,000 people on the grounds for the start of this season. From coast to coast, we are joined by people who are or have been locked in their homes or quarantining in far-off places due to COVID-19. And our nation is in week four of coast-to-coast protests for racial equality, and is facing anew questions about unhealed wounds that date back to our founding.

And yet, today, my “ordinary” greeting of “welcome home to Chautauqua” is still the right one, as we are welcoming you home to what our co-founder Bishop John Heyl Vincent called “the Chautauqua of ideas and inspirations, (which) is not dependent upon the literal and local Chautauqua.”

Tradition is important at Chautauqua. It’s the reason we’re here on this stage today, the same space from which almost every Assembly has been ushered in, and where we hold our principal worship services. Our traditions are replete with important symbols that tell stories about our history and our present role in the world and the yet untapped promise of our future. And symbols have been very much on my mind during this pandemic.

Today, from the opening three taps of a historic gavel, we usher in Chautauqua’s 147th Assembly. So much has happened in our world since the last time this gavel met the aged wood of this lectern, creating that haunting echo that portends the playing of the Largo on the great Massey Organ. This ritual of signifying the passage of time, the mourning of what must come to an end and the promise of something new emerging is a powerful metaphor for today.

And it is this “something new emerging” that makes me tremendously excited to gavel in this Assembly, perhaps one of the most important gatherings we have ever convened.

Tradition is important at Chautauqua. It’s the reason we’re here on this stage today, the same space from which almost every Assembly has been ushered in, and where we hold our principal worship services. Our traditions are replete with important symbols that tell stories about our history and our present role in the world and the yet untapped promise of our future. And symbols have been very much on my mind during this pandemic.

I have three items on top of my desk in the President’s Office at the Colonnade. One is a replica of a sign that sat atop the Resolute Desk in President John F. Kennedy’s White House. It reads “O, God, Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” The second is a stone square that former Chautauqua Vice President Marty Merkley gave me shortly after I began my tenure as the Institution’s 18th President. Inscribed in the rock is a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gave his famed “I Hate War” speech in this space. And the third is a 125-year-old rivet salvaged from a steel truss of the old Amphitheater, which was given to me when we opened up this revitalized Amphitheater at the start of my presidency in 2017. Each of these objects hold cues to the work that begins today and provides for us critical questions:

• What kind of vessel can Chautauqua be in these times of raging waters?
• Who are today’s prophetic voices that, like Roosevelt, serve as lanterns that light the way to the future we must create?
• And what is going to hold us together during this time and beyond if we are not only going to come out the other side of this crazy moment in history but come out a society that is better because we weathered the storm and learned from it?

These are the central questions of our 147th Assembly, and this is the journey we begin today.

What kind of vessel can Chautauqua be?

Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in Between the World and Me, “My mother and father were always pushing me away from secondhand answers — even the answers they themselves believed. I don’t know that I have ever found any satisfactory answers of my own. But every time I ask it, the question is refined. That is the best of what the old heads meant when they spoke of being ‘politically conscious’ — as much a series of actions as a state of being, a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty.”

Chautauqua is asking itself an important question: How do we best serve a nation hungry for meaning and answers to complex questions at a time that feels so chaotic? As now-emeritus Kent State University President Beverly Warren asked us at Chautauqua in 2018, how do we “use the wound” to do something that will make our tomorrow a better one?

Today, we officially launch CHQ Assembly, a multi-platform online digital collective that will allow us to share all nine theme weeks of this summer assembly season, our featured lecture speakers, our chaplains of the week, our interfaith speakers, performing arts events, an impressive set of online master and enrichment classes, and a space for Chautauqua Visual Arts that allows people to view exhibitions, explore artwork, and shop in our Gallery Store. And all of that is only hinting at the hundreds of young performing and visual artists who will be studying with us online.

But CHQ Assembly is not a response to COVID-19, and it’s not a one-time initiative meant to bridge us to the other side of this pandemic. While it is certainly helping us to convene this summer, its inspiration comes from our strategic plan, 150 Forward, which asks us to consider how Chautauqua might have an impact beyond our traditional grounds in Western New York and beyond the traditional calendar of our summer assembly season. That plan also asks us to consider how we might harness the power of our platform to do even greater good in the world.

With this launch, we intend to be a part of a year-round dialogue and to use the power of CHQ Assembly, in partnership with others, to amplify voices in a needed national dialogue. We also hope that it allows us, perhaps for the first time in a significant way, to expand the reach of Chautauqua’s programming to audiences that have been for far too long missing from the Chautauqua mix. We seek to realize greater socioeconomic reach, to increase racial diversity and to remove financial and geographic boundaries that have kept our audiences too homogenous for too long.

As a respondent said in one of our community surveys last year, “What stands out for me is a promise that is not yet realized, which is inclusivity and becoming a place that demonstrates the values it espouses.” Those values:

• Passion for multigenerational and multidisciplinary engagement through the arts, education, recreation, and religion;
• Belief in the dignity and contributions of all people;
• Commitment to dialogue to achieve enhanced understanding that leads to positive action;
• Respect for the serenity, tradition, safety, and ecology of Chautauqua’s historic Grounds and surroundings; and
• Balance between Chautauqua’s heritage and the need to innovate.

… all come to rest in our new CHQ Assembly. We pledge today to provide a vessel for a more inclusive society to share what’s on its mind, to connect with one another and to remove the barriers that determine who gets to lead, or even be a part of, the conversation. It’s the opportunity to not only expand our programming reach, but more importantly to build a larger, more diverse community of fellow learners. When the community expands, the conversation changes, and the opportunity to learn grows. Chautauqua is the practice of humanity through forum, reflection and art, leading to thoughtful action, and this Assembly is inviting all — not some, but all — of the richness of humanity to play a part.

Who are today’s lanterns, lighting the way toward the future?

The murder of George Floyd on May 29 ignited worldwide protests against a racist and unjust system. Coming amidst the backdrop of a global pandemic, the world — and our country especially — has been flooded with renewed questions and calls for reform, for justice, for an end to some lives mattering while others seemingly do not. We enter this summer assembly, as Coates beckons us, needing “a constant questioning, questioning as ritual, questioning as exploration rather than the search for certainty.”

We need to explore:

• Our global and local response to climate change;
• Those unseen forces that are influencing the weaving and tearing of the fabric of our nation;
• The way in which art informs and has the potential to save our democracy;
• The ethical boundaries of our increasingly valuable and increasingly invasive technology;
• What we still have to learn from the suffrage movement in our ongoing fights for equality as we mark the 100th anniversary of women being granted the right to vote in this nation;
• How we rebuild our public education system and whether it can, as Horace Mann once noted, be “the great equalizer;”
• How notions of “us” and “we” can break through tribalism and isolation to help us bridge our differences;
• Whether the U.S. Constitution provides a pathway toward securing the “blessings of liberty” for us all and what may need to change to make that so; and
• What will the world look like over the coming decades, and how we can work together to better prepare for the future.

If Roosevelt used Chautauqua’s platform to remind the nation that we should hate war, we have an obligation to use this platform to give voice to those of this time that can show us a way forward, and I’m grateful to Christiana Figueres, Rabbi David Wolpe, Anna Deavere Smith, Darren Walker, Valarie Kaur, Sir Ken Robinson, Martha Jones, Jon Meacham, Angélique Kidjo, and Rhiannon Giddens, among many others, for being today’s lanterns.

What’s going to hold us together?

Many have questioned how we hold society together when we can’t even be within six feet of one another. Certainly, as an organization, as we shifted toward using CHQ Assembly as our main form of convening this summer, we asked ourselves questions about how to engage authentically when we have historically used the in-person gathering as one of our main ingredients — some might even say it’s the secret sauce of Chautauqua.

So what does it mean that for many Chautauquans this summer they will engage without leaving their homes or home communities? What does it look like to explore these important questions from the confines of our living rooms or on a remote device far from this Amphitheater or any of the other dozens of public gathering spaces on these grounds in Western New York?

We often say when you come to Chautauqua that its power is not in the convening here, but in what you choose to do when you return home. Do you take all you’ve learned here and make a conscious choice to make your own corner of the planet a better place?

Coretta Scott King reminds us that “the greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”

Given all that’s happening in the world, given the need for questions that demand exploration, not for certainty’s sake, but because we can and must come together, as we begin this new season, how can we take all we’re about to learn and devote our energies to do the work when our communities need it, need us, most?

This isn’t a “lost” summer, but a summer when we’re called to do more. The way we embrace fellow Chautauquans on the Plaza is how we should embrace those wherever we find ourselves this summer. This summer we don’t come to Chautauqua, but carry the spirit of Chautauqua throughout a world that needs it. And that spirit means opening ourselves up to learning, to declaring that “I have more work to do.” This summer must unite the name Chautauqua with the synonym of “active citizenry.” Because, when the world needs it most, we’re reminded that Chautauqua can, and must always be, far more than a place.

As I stare out into the Amphitheater today, there’s something powerful about knowing that while the benches may be empty, I look out into an amplified community, the heart of Chautauqua that gathers today to learn together, to worship together, and that makes a commitment to make the world a better place because of it.

That’s what those objects on my desk remind me of as we begin this assembly.

Yes, the sea is so great right now. But our charge is not to despair, but to be a vessel of hope.

Yes, the world sometimes feels as if it is at war. But we have modern-day prophets to serve as lanterns, showing us a way to a better tomorrow.

Yes, this tumultuous time has many feeling disjointed and insecure. But like that rivet that held our Amphitheater together, this Chautauqua ideal that was birthed almost 150 years ago was forged in harsh conditions. It has survived financial crises, societal upheaval, natural disasters and acts of terrorism. It can sustain the winds of a pandemic. We are anchored securely in our convictions to deploy the best in human values into the world.

When the rain has subsided, when the clouds roll away and reveal the sunrise of a new day, the daylight will show that Chautauquans never retreated, that Chautauqua never went away, not for even a minute. We found new ways when we were told the old ones were off-limits. We asked unrelenting questions, not always to reach answers, but to get closer to them. And we did that from all over the world, bringing the questions and a call to action to wherever we call home.

It is that exploration of humanity — with all its accomplishments and all its wounds – that commences at Chautauqua in this 147th Assembly. A pandemic could not keep us from that. Weeks of protests against injustice remind us we have too much important work left to do. So let’s get to it.

I tap the gavel three times …

Chautauqua 2020 has begun.

At a certain point in life, you hit a point where you think you’ve encountered every kind of person there is — and there will always be certain kinds of people who stand out. 

There’s one kind of person especially who seems to be able to project an almost incandescent love for their profession and for the people around them, and who possess a purity of character which elevates and uplifts entire communities. 

For many Chautauquans, Jared Jacobsen was exactly this kind of person. 

As Chautauqua Institution’s longtime organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music, Jacobsen served as the operator and guardian of the Massey Memorial Organ located in the Amphitheater and the Tallman Tracker mechanical-action organ in the Hall of Christ, in addition to leading the Motet and Chautauqua Choirs.

On Aug. 27, 2019, Jacobsen died suddenly in a car crash, shortly after completing his 65th summer at Chautauqua. Two days prior, in his final Sacred Song Service of the 2019 season — his final “Largo” on the Massey — he joined Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill in declaring “Camp Meeting is Over,” before Hill’s closing Three Taps of the Gavel. Jacobsen was 70.

“Chautauqua was in his blood, it was in his DNA,” said the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion and senior pastor. “Much of what he did here was just because he wanted to do it, not because it was part of what he had been asked to do.”

At 8 p.m. EDT Sunday, June 28, on CHQ Assembly, Robinson and Joshua Stafford, Chautauqua’s interim organist, will present a virtual memorial concert for Jacobsen for the first Sacred Song Service of the 2020 season — currently the only such service scheduled for the summer. 

“When I was a kid, I always dreamed that maybe someday I’d get to be the Chautauqua organist,” Stafford said. “This is not the way I imagined it happening. I feel a lot of pressure, but I feel like it’s very much the right thing to be able to continue on Jared’s legacy here.” 

Stafford said the program for the concert will include pieces Jacobsen often played and pieces Stafford studied with him, from composers like J.S. Bach, George Gershwin and George Thalben-Ball.

“I met Jared when I was 10, when I first started playing the organ,” Stafford said. “We came to Chautauqua for a Wednesday concert, and I was totally blown away. Eventually, he became my organ teacher for the summer. I started to occasionally play for some of the Sunday organ tours here, and Jared would let me come and sit on the bench with him at the Sacred Song Services.”

The memorial concert is more than just music, according to Stafford — it’s about mending the wounds caused by loss.

“I hope that in being here, I can be helpful in the healing that needs to go on with this sudden and tragic loss,” he said. “Especially as somebody who’s been around Chautauqua for a long time and who was a protege of Jared’s.”

Robinson said that that’s exactly why Stafford’s work is so important. 

“In terms of the concert, I think he will be very reminiscent of Jared,” Robinson said. “He’ll do verbal introductions to each of the pieces. Jared was always a great teacher, and he’d offer little-known facts before he’d play them. Josh will do that as well.”

Stafford said the last time he saw Jacobsen was at one of the first Sacred Song Services of the 2019 season, when Jacobsen asked Stafford to play George Frideric Handel’s postlude “Largo” — an aria from Xerxes that was one of Jacobsen’s favorites, as well as a mainstay of Sacred Song Services at Chautauqua since the first Massey program in 1907. Jacobsen on several occasions called “Largo” “the closest thing (at Chautauqua) that we have to a sacred relic.”

“It was a huge honor for anyone other than the Chautauqua organist to get to do that,” Stafford said. “I remember Jared came over and gave me a big hug at the end of it, and Gene Robinson came over, too, and said: ‘The two of you just make me weep.’ It was one of those moments that was special at the time, but I didn’t know going forward just how special it would be. That was the last day I saw Jared.”

Stafford will play recitals through CHQ Assembly every Wednesday on the Tallman Tracker Organ in the Hall of Christ to be broadcast following the 10:45 a.m. morning lectures, along with providing the music for the rest of the season’s ecumenical and interfaith worship services, at 10:45 a.m. EDT Sundays and 9:15 EDT weekdays, also on the Tallman.

“I hope he’d be proud,” Stafford said.

For more than 100 years, theater has played an integral role in the living and breathing culture of Chautauqua Institution. Since its founding in 1983, Chautauqua Theater Company has carried on a rich tradition of internationally acclaimed theater professionals and up-and-coming students collaborating on the production and performance of classic, contemporary and new plays each and every season.

For nearly four decades, CTC’s plays and productions have been immersive in-person experiences, transporting audiences from their seats in Bratton Theater into the worlds woven onstage by actors and set designers. Now, in a time of uncertainty and isolation, with the Institution suspending in-person programming for the 2020 season, CTC has made transformations to their programs that adapt the experience of the theater for a remote audience.

“The current situation has necessitated that we change, and what’s wonderful about that is when you get a group of artists like our conservatory, creativity follows that,” said CTC Artistic Director Andrew Borba. “We have been really delighted and fortunate to have that creative spirit in a time of things being shut down.”

In a typical season, the CTC has a conservatory of about 19 actors and directing and design fellows, but this year has accepted 33, including one conservatory member “commuting” from London. In the past, much of the focus of the program has been producing performances; now, this focus has shifted to put more of an emphasis on education and collaboration.

The annual New Play Workshops have been extended online, and additional classes which focus on topics such as webcasting and various other individual production skills have been added into the program.

“We are trying in many ways to embrace the spirit of what we always do, which is to focus on what the playwright is looking for within the play,” Borba said. “While we also understand that the rules have changed, and sometimes that’s to our benefit.”

CTC is still finalizing what the season will look like for audience members, and is experimenting with various virtual platforms, including a potential livestream performance on CHQ Assembly. 

Managing Director Sarah Clare Corporandy is excited about the promise of keeping traditions alive in a new way, citing the new Cocktails and Conversations program, which emulates the front porch experience remotely. 

One such tradition is the annual Hello Chautauqua performance, where CTC conservatory members introduce themselves to members of the community through a series of performances and monologues, kicking off the season of performances. The CTC opted this year to continue the tradition virtually, ensuring that performers still connect with the community and are given a platform to introduce their art. The performance will go live on the Virtual Porch at 7:30 p.m. EDT on Friday, July 3.

“It’s a crazy time to be making art in our world right now,” Corporandy said. “But there are things that we’re going to learn that will inform us going forward, and I think that’s really exciting.”

Though much of the program has yet to be finalized, both Corporandy and Borba said that what they have seen so far has exceeded their expectations, and that they have enjoyed seeing familiarity joined with innovation as they work with members to create. 

“I’m really excited about how each program will comfort and surprise me at the same time,” Corporandy said.

The CTC is one of the only theater companies in the country that remains operating, and Borba is thankful for the opportunity to continue creating. 

“I’m most excited about being able to produce at a time when everything else has shut down,” he said. “We have the ability to do this, so we will.”

Borba said the upcoming season is “really about keeping people engaged, and allowing a space for people to create and interact. We are still able to create work with a very engaged, diverse and talented group of artists.”