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Writer-in-Residence Jim Daniels to Discuss Music of Poetry in Brown Bag Craft Talk

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Daniels

In a computer file named “poem ideas,” Jim Daniels transcribes phrases, images and concepts from the 3-by-5-inch notecards he keeps on his person and by his bedside table. The reminders, very brief notes, “operate more like memory triggers,” Daniels said. One of the items simply reads, “Prostitutes on playground swings.”

“This is typical of my notes, in that there is some juxtaposition or tension that catches my attention,” Daniels said. “Since I do films too, I often think in terms of visual imagery even more than I did earlier in my career. … The first real poem I wrote in high school juxtaposed the names of liquors with the names of candy in the store I worked at. I’m always looking for things that on the surface seem unrelated, to find the relationship. Which, I suppose, is the very basis for metaphor.”

Another, tamer topic inside Daniels’ idea file is, “The accident of the Stone Poneys vs. the Rolling Stones” — a brief summary of when his mother mistakenly bought him a Stone Poneys record instead of one by the Rolling Stones. Daniels imagines the poem to “focus on adolescence and tension with parents trying to find a way to reach their kids.” It wasn’t the Stones 45 he was hoping for, but luckily the Linda Ronstadt-fronted Stone Poneys album turned out to be an overall valuable purchase.

Fresh from co-editing the anthology, RESPECT: Poetry on the Music of Detroit, and partial to selecting the subject of his Brown Bag lectures according to his “own obsessions and enthusiasms as a writer,” the Week Eight poet-in-residence will offer his Brown Bag craft talk, “The Poetry of Music, the Music of Poetry,” at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, August 13 on the porch of the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall.

Daniels, who is most recently the author of the poetry collections The Middle Ages and Street Calligraphy, described his craft talk as “an examination of a couple of samples — poems and song lyrics — that deal with political material and the tension between the relative popularity of contemporary music and the relative obscurity of contemporary poetry.”

Growing up in Detroit meant that he was surrounded by “some of the best music in the world,” and Daniels said he first encountered the poetry world “more out of an interest in rock ’n’ roll than poetry.”

“Poetry, as it was taught to me, tended to be disconnected from my life, while music was everything,” he said.

Although his lecture will focus on the modern landscape of poetry as music, and vice versa — Bob Dylan winning, controversially, the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, for example — Daniels acknowledges that all poetry “relies on musical devices” to make meaning within the language they contain. His is a philosophy also claimed by his sonically inclined fellow poet Abraham Smith, a Week Five poet-in-residence who taught a workshop on performing poetry.

“It’s interesting that technology has, in some ways, returned poetry to its origins by making the performances of poetry more accessible online,” Daniels said. “The printed page took away some of that, but I see it coming back more and more.”

With roots in the Rolling Stones and the Detroit music of his childhood, Daniels will link the entwined relationship of poetry and music to his life. Teaching a week-long workshop at the Chautauqua Writers’ Center titled “Writing Lives, Writing Poems,” Daniels cites Jack Gilbert’s short poem, “Poetry is a Kind of Lying” — which concludes with a stanza that reads, “Degas said he didn’t paint / what he saw, but what / would enable them to see / the thing he had.” — as an emotional guide for writing personal and precise poems.

“I write poetry and fiction, but not much nonfiction because I like to take details from a personal reality and use them in new ways — fictionalizing them to get at an emotional truth of some kind without worrying about what ‘really’ happened,” Daniels said. “Poetry is also a way of preserving memory, which I’m also interested in, and reexamining the past through the lens of the present — the past is always changing based on who we are becoming. It affects how we look back to help us look forward.”

Hardy Merriman to Inspire Hope Through Stories of Nonviolent Resistance

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In a world roiled by conflict, Hardy Merriman wants to project a message of hope.

“I want to talk about the emerging challenge of rising authoritarianism in the world, and declining democracies,” said Merriman, an author and president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. “I’ll talk about how nonviolent and civil resistance movements are a critical aspect of reversing the trend of declining democracy.”

At 2 p.m. Tuesday, August 13 in the Hall of Philosophy, Merriman will discuss “Power From the Bottom Up: Civil Resistance as a Driver of Rights, Freedom and Justice.” Merriman’s lecture is part of the Week Eight interfaith lecture series, “The Power of Soft Power.”

“Hard power is often defined as ‘either the threat or use of violent force,’ ” Merriman said. “Nonviolent movements, by definition, do not do that. However, they wield a great deal of power.”

Merriman said to look no further than Sudan or Algeria as examples of such movements.

“In Sudan, the fall of a dictator who was wanted on charges of genocide was initiated by a nonviolent movement,” he said. “We saw the fall of a longtime autocrat in Algeria earlier this year. These are just a few examples.”

In America, Merriman pointed to the nonviolent resistance movements of the Civil Rights era.

“For people who say that violence is the most effective or the most powerful way of achieving their goal, that’s actually historically not true,” he said. “For most people who faced oppression, nonviolent resistance has been more effective and powerful.”

Merriman said the United States has been behind the rest of the world in recognizing the critical importance of nonviolent movements.

“Most national affairs experts have underestimated how important these movements are,” he said. “We know statistically that the number of these movements worldwide is growing. We know that they’re shaping things. Ignoring them, or not knowing how to respond, is to our detriment.”

In 2007, Merriman co-authored A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle, a book that was intended to codify nonviolent resistance strategies.

“We can say, ‘OK, if this is a social science, then what are the key attributes of movements that succeed, and what are some of the key attributes that lead to their failure?’ ” he said. “We can study that, and develop frameworks that increase their chances for success. That’s what I’ve spent my career trying to do.”

For his lecture today, Merriman said he wants people to know that there is “really exciting potential here.”

“There’s some good news in the world,” he said. “At the same time, we really have to meet the challenge of rising authoritarianism in the world as well. It’s incumbent upon us to figure out how we can better support human rights movements around the world.”

With Concertmaster Vahn Armstrong and Guest Conductor Timothy Muffitt, CSO to Perform Romantic Pieces from Bruch and Dvořák

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Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra opens the season with conductor Rossen Milanov and pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk Thursday, June 27, 2019 in the Amphitheater. VISHAKHA GUPTA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Two of Chautauqua’s own will take a moment to shine tonight as guest conductor and soloist.

The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra — featuring CSO Associate Concertmaster Vahn Armstrong and Music School Festival Orchestra Conductor Timothy Muffitt — will perform at 8:15 p.m. Tuesday, August 13 in the Amphitheater. The program features two Romantic-era pieces: Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 26, and Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 in D Minor, Op. 70.

Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 is a central part of the violin’s repertoire. To Muffitt, the piece’s reputation is well-deserved.

“It’s extraordinarily beautiful, not only in the way the violin is used but in the interaction between it and the orchestra,” Muffitt said. “It really makes this stand out as one of the great Romantic-era violin concertos.”

Muffitt, who is also the music director and conductor of both the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and the Lansing Symphony, said Armstrong is well-suited for the concerto’s solo part.

“(Armstrong) is a wonderful violinist, and he has a longstanding relationship with the other players,” Muffitt said. “It’s always exciting to have one of our own out there in the soloist position.”

Armstrong has served as the associate concertmaster of the CSO for 27 seasons. He said the Bruch concerto embodies the violin’s most famous qualities.

“This particular concerto is a favorite for violinists,” Armstrong said. “It’s got a lot of technical aspects that are fun to play, and it celebrates an aspect of the violin — that romantic singing quality. For many of us, that’s why we decided to play the violin in the first place.”

For Armstrong, the concerto is more than just a favorite — it was what pushed him to pursue a musical career.

“Anyone who’s learning to play an instrument goes through a period of time in which they wonder if they want to get really serious about it,” Armstrong said.

During this time, Armstrong attended a concert at Michigan State University. The university hosted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and violinist Pinchas Zukerman to perform Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in what Armstrong described as “essentially an old basketball gym.”

But in this old gym, Armstrong said, he heard Zukerman play and came to a decision.

“I was sold,” Armstrong said. “It was that concert that decided it for me. I said, ‘I really like this violin business; it’s time to get serious about it.’ … Somehow, they managed to put on this concert in a gym that changed my life.”

The experience stuck with him. To this day, he has a unique perspective on unusual venues, Armstrong said.

“Sometimes, as a performing violinist, I play in places that I don’t particularly enjoy,” he said. “But then I remember: Who knows who’s out there in the audience, and what effect this concert might have on them?”

Armstrong performs as a concerto soloist a few times per year. He said the soloist’s role is high-profile and important — and fun.

“Any time you play a concerto, the attention is on you,” Armstrong said. “You need to carry that. But it’s a fun thing to do, taking a moment to shine.”

The concert will also include Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7. Dvořák, a Czech composer, wrote the piece in 1885, while his country struggled to define itself politically and culturally. After finishing the movement, he wrote to a friend that he hoped the uniquely Czech symphony would create an international stir.

“Now I am occupied with my new symphony (for London), and wherever I go I have nothing else in mind but my work, which must be such again as to make a stir in the world, and God grant that it may!” Dvořák wrote.

Dvořák created a symphony that, according to Muffitt, showed a new emotional range for the composer.

“The Seventh Symphony really stands out in Dvořák’s symphonic repertoire for its expressive scope,” Muffitt said. “It’s at a level of drama and intensity that the other symphonies — though wonderful — don’t go into that realm.”

Muffitt said Dvořák drew influence from many other popular composers of his day, but created unique work.

“We hear him as the composer, as the driving force — it’s not a derivative work; he was just absorbing a lot of what was around him and filtering it through his spirit,” Muffitt said.

To Armstrong, the two Romantic pieces will complement each other in the CSO’s performance.

“I think the orchestra has sounded fantastic this year; they’re playing with a beautiful sound and a beautiful ensemble — but also with a lot of heart and passion,” Armstrong said. “The Bruch violin concerto is the height of Romantic lyricism, and you have to put the Dvořák in the same category — just tuneful, joyous music.”

Bill Moyers to Open Week’s Interfaith Talks by Exploring ‘Other Face of Power’

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His resume, too long to list in full, stretches all the way from before the John F. Kennedy administration to the present day.

As the White House press secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson, he managed media relations in one of the most politically fraught times in American history.

And as a journalist, he led Newsday from 1967 to 1970 as its publisher, afterwards working as senior correspondent for “CBS Reports.”

At 2 p.m. Monday, August 12 in the Hall of Philosophy, acclaimed broadcaster Bill Moyers will kick off Week Eight’s interfaith lecture series, “The Power of Soft Power,” with his lecture, “The Other Face of Power.”

One of the key ways Moyers has wielded soft power — defined as the power to attract, rather than coerce — is through his journalism.

“The third pillar of American democracy, an independent press, is under sustained attack, and the channels of information are choked,” Moyers said in his keynote address at the 2007 National Conference for Media Reform. “A few huge corporations now dominate the media landscape in America. Almost all the networks carried by most major cable systems are owned by one of the major media common conglomerates.”

According to Moyers, the few elites in control of the modern media landscape have the power to determine “what ordinary people do not see or hear.”

Moyers began his career in journalism at age 16, when he went to work at a daily newspaper in Marshall, Texas, as a cub reporter.

It was while working at The Marshall News Messenger that Moyers said he got his “big break,” according to an essay published on
TomDispatch.com.

Moyers said that, while most of the journalists at his paper were out on vacation or sick, he was assigned to report on what came to be known as “ ‘the housewives’ rebellion.”

“Fifteen women in my hometown decided not to pay the Social Security withholding tax for their domestic workers,” he wrote. “Those housewives were white, their housekeepers black. Because they tended to earn lower wages, accumulate less savings, and be stuck in those jobs all their lives, Social Security was their only insurance against poverty in old age. Yet their plight did not move their employers.”

Ever since reporting on that story, which was eventually picked up by the Associated Press, Moyers wrote, “I was hooked, and in one way or another I’ve continued to engage the issues of money and power, equality and democracy over a lifetime spent at the intersection between politics and journalism.”

After that story, Moyers worked as a summer intern for Johnson, then a senator, eventually becoming his press secretary and chief of staff after Kennedy was assassinated.

“But though he was in politics, he was never entirely of politics,” journalist Neal Gabler wrote of Moyers in a 2009 article in the Los Angeles Times. “One cannot understand Moyers without understanding his theological training and his moral conviction. His mission has always been to make things better, not louder.”

After Moyers left the White House to continue his career in journalism, Gabler wrote that “(he) has always sought the most interesting thinkers, people who would never otherwise be on television, and then discussed their ideas in search of timeless truths.”

“In a world of certainty that forecloses investigation, Moyers has curiosity,” Gabler wrote. “In a world of glibness and superficiality, he has a rare temerity of mind. In a world of ego and bombast, he has always been modest and self-effacing. He not only gives a forum to unusual thinkers, he is truly, visibly, interested in what they have to say and in who they are because he believes that their ideas really matter.”

MSFO to Perform Final Concert of the Season Under Batons of Timothy Muffitt and Maria Fuller

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Timothy Muffitt conducts the Music School Festival Orchestra during the MSFO concert, Monday, July 1, 2019, in the Amphitheater. Works by Donald Grantham, Edward Elgar, and W.A. Mozart were played during the performance.
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The 2019 Music School Festival Orchestra will take the stage one last time tonight for its grand goodbye.

The final MSFO concert of the season begins at 8:15 p.m. Monday, August 12 in the Amphitheater, conducted by Musical and Artistic Director of the Instrumental Program Timothy Muffitt and 2019 David Effron Conducting Fellow Maria Fuller.

The orchestra will play three pieces: Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Op. 24 by Richard Strauss, Symphony No. 10 in E-minor, Op. 93 by Dmitri Shostakovich and Fractals No. 1 for Strings, Piano and Trumpet, by Fuller herself.

“This program is a culmination of what we’ve worked on, and the repertoire that we do in this concert is always repertoire that I know will involve the many elements the players have been working on,” Muffitt said.

The Strauss piece, which Fuller will conduct, is a tone poem — an orchestral piece meant to tell a story. In this case, it is the story of an artist who is reflecting on his life as he is dying. The emotional range of the piece is broad; from nostalgia to fear, to the triumph of transfiguration upon the artist’s death.

Shostakovich’s 10th symphony, which is composed of four movements and is nearly an hour long, will take up the bulk of the program. It is said to be about the death of Joseph Stalin, having premiered in what was then Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, the same year as the dictator’s death.

“It’s a mistake to try to be too specific about the intent of (the symphony) and what it’s really about because of the double-speak that was involved with life in the Soviet Union,” Muffitt said. “But certainly this is a symphony that is a journey from tragedy and despair and terror into turmoil.”

Fuller’s Fractals No. 1 was inspired by her fascination with the mathematics of fractals, and how that translates into sound. The concept of fractals is when a geometric object is made up of the same shape on the smallest level as on the whole — like snowflakes.

To translate that into music, Fuller said, is to be very motivic, repeating a version of the same musical phrase throughout.

The piece is a relatively last-minute addition to the program, and has only ever been performed with trumpet and piano before; Fuller is excited to adapt this piece for a larger ensemble, and for the challenge of conducting while also playing the piano part. The piece will specially feature student Aaron DuBois on the trumpet.

In many ways, Muffitt sees this concert as the culmination of everything the students have been learning and working on throughout the summer. By collaborating with voice and dance students, they learned to listen and be flexible in their playing alongside other types of performers. By playing lots of chamber music, they learned how to cooperate in small groups — and orchestra, Muffitt said, is just chamber music on a larger scale. By living and rehearsing together nearly every day, they learned how to come together in a short time to produce full-scale performances.

“(They’ve) become an orchestra — not just a collection of musicians,” Muffitt said.

For Fuller, it has been a special experience to live alongside the same musicians she works with, and to see those personal relationships translate into an orchestra that works and communicates well together.

“I’m so grateful for how welcoming the Chautauqua community has been,” she said.

For students, this concert marks the end of an eventful summer that has offered them many opportunities to learn from seasoned musicians, perform in different ways and collaborate with many kinds of artists.

“This is an opportunity for us to get to know some of the great staples of orchestra literature,” said horn player Rebecca Salo. “Technically demanding, musically demanding, … this is sort of the culmination of our summer together — we have worked to become an orchestra all summer, and this is our final product.”

Not only is this the final concert of the MSFO, it is the final show of the School of Music as a whole — with the Piano and Voice Programs already concluded, it is the instrumental students who have the last hurrah.

“It’s our last performance, and we’ve all been through a lot together,” said violist Cameren Williams. “I just hope the audience really feels our energy. … It’s our time to really show what we’ve got.”

Donald Sinta Quartet to Present Sax Repertoire

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The saxophone is deeply rooted in contemporary music — but, according to the Donald Sinta Quartet, the instrument’s capabilities are broader than many people know.

The all-saxophone chamber music quartet will perform at 4 p.m. Monday, August 12 in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, as part of the Chautauqua Chamber Music Guest Artist Series. Their program extends across centuries, from Ludwig Van Beethoven to brand-new compositions.

The four members – Dan Graser, Zach Stern, Joe Girard and Danny Hawthorne-Foss — formed the quartet as students at the University of Michigan and named it after legendary Michigan saxophone professor Donald Sinta. After performing with their university’s symphony orchestra in Los Angeles, Beijing and Shanghai, the members decided to keep playing.

In the chamber music world, all-saxophone groups are extremely rare. According to Graser, the quartet keeps that unfamiliarity in mind when selecting and performing music.

“For probably 90% or more of the audience, this is probably their first experience of a classical saxophone quartet,” Graser said. “So rather than only playing music that only a saxophonist or certain contemporary music fans would understand, we like to present as wide a palate as possible.”

The saxophone is young compared to other popular instruments. Belgian musician Adolphe Sax invented it in the 1840s — less than 30 years before Chautauqua Institution’s first assembly. Despite how young the saxophone is, the quartet members perform music old and new: classical pieces transcribed for saxophone and new compositions with the instrument in mind.

Graser said many modern pieces in the saxophone’s repertoire draw from the instrument’s history.

“What makes (contemporary music for saxophone) accessible a lot of times is when composers take inspiration from the saxophone’s history in other genres, and use that as a thematic idea in the repertoire,” Graser said, adding that “Ex Machina” and “Tango Virtuoso” from today’s program take inspiration from the saxophone’s background.

But the program also includes Beethoven, Dmitri Shostakovich and traditional Irish music. Graser said the concert will illustrate the saxophone’s versatility.

“Folks can see how flexible and chameleon-like the saxophone can be — how many different sound colors, how many different genres you can suggest within just one program,” Graser said.

According to Graser, a diverse program can help illustrate the saxophone’s capabilities next to more traditional ensembles like string quartets.

“(A broad program can) show not only that we’re totally capable of making a really great classical and Romantic string quartet repertoire sound good — or in many cases even better — but that we also have a wealth of music that’s being written right now that people can really get into,” Graser said.

The Donald Sinta Quartet performs from memory and speaks to the audience about each piece, a strategy to engage with the audience, Graser said. The musicians do this, he said, “to be as engaging as (they) can.”

“But the main goal is to present the highest-quality chamber music that we can create,” he said.

Riesers Underwrite Wright’s Morning Lecture in Son’s Memory

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Rick and Susie Rieser pose for a portrait on the porch of the Atheneum Hotel on Aug 5, 2019. The Rieser’s sponsored a Morning Lecture this Chautauqua 2019 season in honor of their son who passed away.

Rick and Susie Rieser are underwriting Robin Wright’s 10:45 a.m. lecture Monday, August 12 in the Amphitheater in memory of their son, Nicholas, who passed away in 2017.

Nicholas began visiting Chautauqua as a young child.

“Our son came first as a grandson, then as a son, before he came as a father,” Susie Riser said. “So it was three generations, and he really liked it here.”

Rick Rieser said Nicholas had a special affinity for Chautauqua, and that it was always an important part of his life.

“We lost our son a couple of years ago and we wanted to do something to memorialize him. … He loved Chautauqua,” Rick Rieser said. “He came (back here) as a father with two little girls. So when he passed away, we were thinking about different things we might do to remember him, and I think that’s the inspiration for this particular gift.”

The couple first visited the Institution in the 1980s, and 16 years ago, they bought an open lot on the grounds to build their house. They are currently spending their 14th full summer at Chautauqua.

“We come regularly; we may have missed a summer or two, but we have come for many summers,” Rick Rieser said. “I really come here because of the community. I think it’s just a stimulating place to be.”

As members of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra League and frequent audience members of the Chautauqua Women’s Club events, the Riesers are very active in the Chautauqua community.

They both said that they thoroughly enjoy the programming at Chautauqua and that there is always something to do.

“We’ve had days where we did seven activities of various kinds, which is quite a lot,” Rick Rieser said. “We take advantage of all sorts of different programming.”

Susie Rieser said that being involved allows her to build long-lasting friendships and explore new things. Aside from regular programming at the Institution, she also enjoys baking and picking fresh fruit with her friends.

“I think that you form really good friends because you get to talk about ideas, sometimes you go to the same things, sometimes different (things),” she said. “I take a lot of classes.”

Rick Rieser said he believes in what Chautauqua represents, and that supporting a lecture in memory of his son was the perfect way to honor him.

“I support the programming here because I think that what Chautauqua is doing is really important,” he said.

Braden Allenby to Discuss Representative Democracy in Lincoln Ethics Series

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In relation to the Week Eight theme, “Shifting Global Power,” Braden Allenby will dive into the past and present of fulcrum points in the geopolitical world.

His lecture, “1788, 1938, and Today: Fulcrum Points in Geopolitical Evolution,” will be held at 12:30 p.m. Monday, August 12 in the Hall of Philosophy, as part of the Lincoln Applied Ethics Series. Allenby is the President’s Professor of Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering and Law, and the Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, at Arizona State University.

Allenby will be discussing the changes that representative democracy is undergoing.

“We all know that representative democracy has been under attack,” Allenby said. “The latest testimony on (Robert) Mueller went back to the fact that the Russians in particular have been very effective in attacking representative democracy.”

Allenby said that more people should be questioning whether representative democracy is still effective; he said he will discuss the ways in which technological trends have altered the effectiveness of representative democracy.

“The underlying question of whether representative (democracy) remains the most effective form of government has not been asked,” Allenby said. “What I’m going to talk about is the probability that, in fact, the underlying technological trend, particularly in AI and information technology, significantly shifts the balance of effectiveness from representative democracy to soft authoritarianism.”

Allenby said he hopes Chautauquans will leave his lecture with a better understanding of the “deep challenges” of modern-day governance. He said such understanding also involves considering the roots of national challenges and that “by trying to work on some of those issues before they become crises, we may be able to save important parts of the American experiment.”

Allenby will also lead master classes this week in the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall; the classes are fully enrolled.

“(The classes) look in more detail at some of the sources of the challenges applied to case study and what AI, combined with other technologies, might be able to do as soon as 2020, and gives an idea of the kinds of challenges that are posed for fundamental democratic institutions like freedom of speech, checks and balances and others,” Allenby said.

Robin Wright to Use Correspondent Career to Discuss Period of Global Change

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Robin Wright considers herself lucky for the opportunity to watch history unfold.

She has witnessed political transitions, such as the end of communism in the Eastern Bloc; she watched the Egypt-Israel peace treaty signing on the south lawn of the White House; and was present when Nelson Mandela walked to freedom. She has traveled with almost every president since Jimmy Carter and every secretary of state since Henry Kissinger — oh, and a pope.

But above all, she considers herself “very, very lucky” that her dad loved sports.

Wright, contributing writer to The New Yorker and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, will speak at 10:45 a.m. Monday, August 12 in the Amphitheater. Wright will open Week Eight, “Shifting Global Power.”

Wright described her career as a “total accident” and a way to “get revenge” on her father, who loved sports and brought Wright with him to every game and match he wanted to see.

While attending the University of Michigan, her roommate suggested she go to a meeting for The Michigan Daily. Even though she walked in with no interest in journalism, she saw an opportunity in the paper’s sports section and figured she would write one article to joke with her father.

“The joke was on me, because I became the first female sports editor for the student paper,” she said. “There are times in life when a confluence of events come together and shape your life — this was one of those moments.”

Wright has since covered a dozen wars and several revolutions, reporting from more than 140 countries on all seven continents for numerous publications, including The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, TIME and Foreign Affairs.

However, Wright still considers herself a historian. While chronicling contemporary history, Wright has been present for every Middle East war, uprising and revolution since 1973.

Throughout her career, Wright has wrestled with the morality of war. Instead of reducing death tolls to statistics and figures, she has always strived to take her coverage a step further, asking, “How do these conflicts affect the human existence?”

“Whether I’m seeing kids going to school and creating a better next generation, or destroying an infrastructure so people don’t have homes or access to water, I always live in war zones, just like everybody else does,” she said.

After witnessing “extraordinary change” in government and global policy in her 50 years of being a correspondent, Wright has a certain sensibility — to anticipate when change is on the horizon.   

“As a historian, I am struck by how this century is going to be the most important period of change in reshaping the means of governance, the way we fight war and the adversaries we fight in those wars,” she said.

And power will not only shift this century, according to Wright, but the definition of power will change completely.

“In many ways, we are going through a transition that is as important and as big as the one we went through 500 years ago when nation-states were formed out of city-states, when you had the printed word and beginnings of the Enlightenment,” she said. “We went from a God-centered world to a human-centered world, and we are going through that kind of epic change.”

In her lecture, Wright wants to educate people on the “big picture,” as she said people do not spend enough time stepping back to grasp the scope of change ahead, a lesson she learned from her father.

“My father, who was a wonderful professor, taught his students and his children that to solve any problem or any issue, you had to stand on top of the world and look down,” Wright said. “That’s what I try to do wherever I go and not get sucked into the moment, but try to put it in a much bigger perspective.”

And her father’s lessons didn’t end there. He emphasized the importance of never letting her personal biases shape her point of view — a lesson that has carried over in her work as a foreign correspondent.

“I know what American troops or Western governments are going to do and what they want to achieve, but what I need to understand is the other side,” she said. “It’s so important to see the big picture, but also to see up close all sides; only then do you see how we get out of it, what the implications will be and understand how we got there.”

Wright stressed that this ongoing transformation has nothing to do with Donald Trump; it’s a global change that is here to stay — into 2020 and beyond.

“We are a part of something so much bigger, and we can’t allow ourselves to default into anything smaller,” Wright said. “We can be bolder, we can be braver and we can get through this.”

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede Discusses Years of Experience with Zen Buddhism

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Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede talks about Zen Buddhism and the relationship between evil and humanity during the seventh interfaith lecture of the season. Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson and Kjolhede continue the conversation after the lecture Friday, August 9, 2019 in the Hall of Philosophy. VISHAKHA GUPTA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

On Aug. 3 in El Paso, Texas, 22 people lost their lives after a man armed with an AK-47 assault rifle opened fire at a Walmart. Just a day later, another armed gunman killed nine and wounded more than two dozen in a deadly attack in the Oregon District in Dayton, Ohio. These acts of mass violence, like the famine in Yemen, the AIDs epidemic and other global crises that affect millions, are examples of the evil that exists in this world.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede. VISHAKHA GUPTA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
“Evil, suffering, violence and tragedy have been around since the beginning of humankind,” said the Rt. Rev. V Gene Robinson, vice president of religion and senior pastor, who opened the Interfaith Friday lecture in the Hall of Philosophy.

So how can evil be explained? How is it that bad things can happen to good people, and vice versa?

Before joining Robinson for the Interfaith Friday conversation, Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, abbot and director of the Rochester Zen Center, approached these questions with the three most famous words in Zen Buddhist practice.

“I. Don’t. Know,” Kjolhede said. “I don’t know, and I think this takes us into the depths of the mystical traditions of all the different religions, … ‘mystical’ meaning that which is beyond the intellectual, beyond the conceptual, that which is the intuitive or contemplative. This is what unites all religions that have a mystical aspect to them; this realm of not knowing.”

Kjolhede began his lecture by quoting a famous Chinese Zen master who once said: “To speak of a thing, misses the mark.”

“That’s what I’m up against, and that’s what anyone in speaking about Zen is up against,” he said. “Anything I say falls short, because the true essence of Zen cannot be encompassed in words — it’s beyond words.”

The Zen school of Buddhism has historically been known as the school that doesn’t rely on words, or “the school of direct experience.” Kjolhede said the point of Zen Buddhism is to get behind the words.

The word “Zen” is the transliteration of the Chinese word, “Chan.” These two words simply mean “meditation” — Zen is a practice based entirely around meditation.

“Now here comes the hard part,” Kjolhede said. “If we’re talking about God, or evil or any noun, we’re always left with what that really means.”

Buddhists believe that all truth has two sides — the conventional and the ultimate, joined together to create a two-fold reality. The conventional side is the dualisms people face throughout life: time and space, success and failure, etc.

“But then there’s this other side, which you could call the undifferentiated,” Kjolhede said. “The eternal, the absolute. And reality, or I could say enlightenment, is seeing these two sides as just two sides of reality.”

In other words, this “other side” of reality is the unknowable side.

“But you can’t speak about either side as anything except half the truth,” he said. “The truth is ‘this,’ the whole thing. In addressing the matter of evil or God, or anything … we have to talk about it from these two sides.”

Reaching the unknowable side of reality requires emptiness. According to the Buddhist belief of emptiness, nothing in the world is fixed — everything is in flux. For example, an audience member who walked into the Hall of Philosophy 20 minutes before Kjolhede’s lecture began, wasn’t the same person when they left as they were when they walked in.

Everything is insubstantial, according to Kjolhede, including God and evil. Not that evil things don’t happen — he recognizes that heinous crimes and cruelty occur all over the world — but evil is not a fixed thing, it’s not permanent, it’s not a thing as it is in other religions.

“That’s not just what I believe; it doesn’t matter what I believe,” he said. “It’s what I’ve experienced.”

Kjolhede’s experience with Zen has spanned 49 years. Like his teacher, Philip Kapleau, Kjolhede became invested in the practice after an experience that left him “shredded.” He was arrested after being caught with peyote as a 21-year-old, and his night in prison was one Kjolhede described as a “night in hell.”

“I was with 13 other convicted prisoners convicted of murder; heroin addicts screaming and vomiting all night,” he said. “This is the suburban kid who grew up in Rochester, Michigan, by the way. … I realized that I had to change my life.”

Originally, Zen bored him — he was looking for stimulating philosophy, rather than rigid practice. Now, he believes, “a little bit of understanding inclinith one’s mind to philosophy, deeper understanding inclinith one’s mind to religion,” once said by Francis Bacon.

“I believe that,” Kjolhede said. “I believe it because to go to the depths of reality, to the depths of our own nature, requires us to go beyond this rational, logical mind.”

When addressing the question, “How can bad things happen to good people and vice versa?” Zen Buddhists don’t rely on any doctrinal points such as reincarnation or Karma, which states that everything results from a chain of cause and effect.

“In Zen, we don’t need to stay there in talking about Karma,” he said. “I would say that in Tibetan Buddhism, (Karma) is more of a thing. In fact, I’ve seen real, serious debates between Tibetan Buddhists about whether you need to believe in reincarnation to come to enlightenment. In Zen, that’s beside the point. In Zen, it’s this moment, it’s now. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in rebirth, or past life or future life. It’s, ‘Are you present now?’ That’s the important thing.”

Tenderness Makes Treasures of Us All, Rev. Mary Luti Says

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Mary Luti delivers the word during the Sunday Morning Worship service on Aug 11, 2019 with her sermon titled, “The Power of Tenderness: Rejoice with Me,” in the Chautauqua Amphitheater. ALEXANDER WADLEY/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

“Tenderness is a word I need to hear, and you might need it, too,” said the Rev. Mary Luti. “Something this week, last week or the week before might have put a knife in your heart, and your inner judge is mocking you when you are obviously not wrong.”

Luti was preaching at the 10:45 a.m. Sunday Ecumenical Service of Worship and Sermon in the Amphitheater. Her sermon title was “The Power of Tenderness: Rejoice with Me,” and the Scripture text was Luke 15:1-32, the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the Prodigal Son and his brother.

“Tenderness is a word you might need if you checked your daughter’s phone and found out her secrets, her bad friends and the nasty things she knows about,” Luti said. “You wonder about how you fell down as a parent, and whose child is this anyway?”

Tenderness is useful when things in life don’t go as planned, Luti said. Sometimes, people think they’ve come to a dead end in life, or that they’re on a treadmill. Sometimes, it may seem like “the world will never grant your wishes and it is not the stage for all your starring roles.”

“You don’t know what to do with your disappointment, and you may think what others say is true — you are a dreamer, unfocused, you did not live your life right and you should be ashamed.”

You might need a word out on the highway when you are cut off in traffic, she told the congregation. You blow your horn, and the other driver gives you the finger.

“It was like when you had a rant with your neighbor over his lawn signs about the lies, the cruelty, leaving children to wail without parents as the sea levels rise,” Luti said.

Maybe you considered following that car but “you don’t know who has a gun today,” she said.

“It is bloody hard, and there is gratuitous violence below the surface of the most comfortable lives,” Luti said. “You need the joy of fly fishing, yoga or a good stiff drink.”

Luti talked about the tenderness in the parable of the lost sheep. The lone sheep did not wander away on purpose, but tuft by tuft of grass followed a path into the rocks and got lost.

“The last thing the sheep needed was to have someone rub his nose in his mistake,” she said. “The sheep did not need to hear that it was its own dumb fault; there were smarter sheep who deserved to be safe.”

The lost sheep needed to be found, and the good shepherd went in search of it.

“The shepherd could have cut his losses,” Luti said, “but he saw the sheep, still bleating, and took it in his arms and wrapped it around his shoulders like one of the glass-eyed stoles your grandmother wore.”

The shepherd boasted, “Look what I found — my lost sheep,” Luti said. “We need that tenderness.”

She continued, “We need to be found by the no-nonsense woman who values everything she has and refuses to concede the coin is lost until it is tucked back in the box with the leather straps and hinges where she keeps her treasures.”

The woman was not too tired from her search to invite her neighbors to come over for drinks.

The world needs tenderness like the self-centered boy, trying to be his own person, who takes his inheritance and spends it all.

“He was miserable because he did not know who he was,” Luti said. “He felt he was a pig person and that his father might take him back as a servant. He was willing to stay lost even when he was at home. The last thing he needed was for the taunting voice of shame in his ear, or his righteous older brother with moral clarity telling him he was damn lucky and to be ashamed — always and forever.”

We need to be found by a loopy parent, Luti said, “who can’t tell the difference between sincere change and self-serving excuses, who shuts us up with kisses and says, ‘Rejoice with me, look what I found, the apple of my eye, my once-dead kid.’ ”

The power of tenderness is awesome. It undermines common sense and good judgment.

“It erases all the ordinary markers of belonging,” she said, “the drive to balance the scales. When nothing else can, tenderness turns the unturnable page. We start fresh when nothing else — not a sermon, no pep talk — can make a difference. Tenderness makes treasures of us all.”

She admitted there is a such a thing as being stupid, wrong and selfish.

“We do sin and harm that causes pain in our lives and global havoc,” Luti said. “We should be ashamed and take responsibility for our aimlessness.”

Most of our sin is more haplessness than perversity, Luti said.

“Our choices are not as free as we think they are, and our motives are never clear,” she said. “We are so hungry for love we will do anything to get it.”

Because we are not ready to love and be loved, the first word must always be tenderness, before grace can be conferred.

“The church is a collection of the tender and the lost,“ Luti said. “It ministers to the blood-soaked fringes of life. It is time we exhort each other to find the lost sheep, the lost coins, the lost children­ — especially the children.”

The tenderness of Christ must come first.

“It must be above us and below us, to the right of us and the left of us, in front of us and behind us,” Luti said. “We can’t shape our communities without Christ’s tenderness. We must know ourselves first, last and always as loved without reason. The truth without love will crush us. Tenderness will heal us.”

Jesus shared our fragile flesh and knows how precarious goodness is. Jesus saved his harshest words for those who had no patience with the weakness of others.

“Jesus comes not to improve us, but is intent on loving us, simply loving us and seeing what love can do,” Luti said. “He comes to you here with kindness and tenderness for you.”

And Jesus knows where you are, Luti said.

“You may be a little lost,” she said, “but he knows where you are and you are safe with him. Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice.”

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, vice president of religion and senior pastor, presided. Kaye Lindauer, who will celebrate 30 years of teaching Special Studies classes at Chautauqua in 2020, read the Scriptures. The Chautauqua Strings, 53 student musicians from Pittsburgh, played the world premiere of Aleksandr “Sasha” Voinov’s “Carry On!” This was the seventh premiere of Voinov’s music at Chautauqua. The Strings and the Chautauqua Choir were under the direction of Edward Leonard, founder and music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh. The hymn-anthem was “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” choral setting by Mack Wilberg. The hymn of reflection after the morning prayers was “Come and Find the Quiet Center,” attributed to Benjamin Franklin White, text by Shirley Erena Murray. The offertory anthem, with the Chautauqua Choir and the Chautauqua Strings under the direction of Leonard, was “For the Beauty of the Earth,” arranged by John Rutter. Jared Jacobsen, organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music, played the Massey Memorial Organ. The organ postlude was “God Among Us,” from La Nativité du Seigneur, by Olivier Messiaen. The Mary E. and Samuel M. Hazlett Memorial Fund provides support for this week’s services.

Hultquist Foundation Continues Support of MSFO Experience

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Artistic and Music Director Timothy Muffitt leads the Music School Festival Orchestra and they perform with Chautauqua Voice Program students Lindsey Reynolds, soprano, left, and Marie Engle, mezzo-soprano, during a rehearsal for their production of “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” (The Capulets and the Montagues) Sunday, Aug. 4, 2019 in Lenna Hall. DAVE MUNCH/PHOTO EDITOR

The Hultquist Foundation of Jamestown is a longtime supporter of the Chautauqua Music School Festival Orchestra. The Hultquist Foundation was founded in 1965, in memory of Earle Hultquist, a successful industrialist from Jamestown. The foundation financially supports numerous organizations in the greater Jamestown community each year.

“Our foundation has a long history with the Institution, and our directors remain committed to funding the MSFO because we believe strongly about the program and its leadership, and it has an impressive record of success with training young musicians,” said Stephen Wright, president of the Hultquist Foundation.

Students come from all over the country, as well as internationally, to participate in the program. The Hultquist Foundation’s investment in the MSFO has made it possible for these talented students to improve their skills and gain the best possible experience during their time at Chautauqua.

“It’s exciting to be able to attract so much young talent from around the world to our rural community each summer and to watch the participants grow and flourish and move on to national and international venues,” Wright said.

The Hultquist Foundation’s board of directors will continue its tradition of attending the MSFO’s final performance of the season in support of the students; the performance will take place at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater.

For more information on underwriting opportunities at Chautauqua, please contact Tina Downey, director of the Chautauqua Fund, at 716-357-6406 or tdowney@chq.org.

Sean McFate to Talk New Rules of War in CWC Forum

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McFate

It’s the wee hours of the night, but that barely registers because a fast-paced geopolitical thriller, Shadow War, has a firm hold and has left an unsettling feeling that it could very well be a work of creative nonfiction.

The protagonist, Tom Locke, is an elite American mercenary secretly striving to save the family of an Eastern European oligarch in Ukraine in just one week.

“The whole novel thing started accidentally,” said Sean McFate, principal author of Shadow War, which he wrote with co-author Bret Witter. “I wanted to write a memoir. My agent said, ‘No, no, no; put it into fiction.’ Tom Locke is much more damaged and much more badass than me.”

OK, but what about the oligarch?

At 2 p.m. Saturday in the Hall of Philosophy, professor, “think tanker” and novelist McFate will give a talk titled, “The New Rules of War,” as part of the Chautauqua Women’s Club’s Contemporary Issues Forum.

The talk is based on his third nonfiction book, The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder, published this year by HarperCollins.

McFate’s childhood aspirations had little to do with war. He said that at age 9, he left Ridgefield, Connecticut, to attend the Saint Thomas Choir School in New York City — a “music-feeding school for Juilliard.”

Located in midtown Manhattan and limited to grades three through eight, STCS is one of only three all-boys boarding schools worldwide that exclusively educate choirboys.

“I was a violinist,” McFate said. “My great plan was to perform the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto at Carnegie Hall at 17. I had my first real life crisis at 13; I wouldn’t be Jascha Heifetz. I walked away.”

From a professional music career, that is. But everywhere McFate goes, he brings his “heroin of choice” — his violin.

“Opera and classical music are my lifelong passions,” he said. “I have an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music.”

At Brown University, McFate double-majored in history and religious studies, and participated as a cadet in the U.S. Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.   


“Initially, my goal was to be a professor of philosophy and history,” he said. “I wanted to be a liberal arts professor in New England. But somehow it felt fraudulent without experiencing and tasting the world.”

One of McFate’s grandfathers had served in the Army during World War II. He was initially left for dead at the Battle of the Bulge, but McFate said his grandfather was eventually taken off the battlefield and survived.

“He told me, ‘Whatever you do, you will serve your country. After that, you can do anything,’ ” McFate said. “This was powerful for me. Basically I was Brown’s only ROTC.”

He said he “went from super-liberal Brown to … Fort Bragg, where (many) were to the right of Rush Limbaugh. I learned stuff in the Army that you can’t learn in schools.”

When McFate joined the renowned 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army XVIII Airborne Corps, he became part of an elite airborne infantry division specializing in parachute assault operations into “denied areas” and rapid responses to crises anywhere in the world.

“It was very easy to go from Brown to the Army,” McFate said. “The discipline of (learning the) violin is good preparation for the Army. … I was always a nerdy, poetic kid who liked to spend Saturdays in the library. When I joined the Army, I found I was really good at it.”

So good in fact, that he graduated from elite Army training schools, including Airborne, Jumpmaster and the Jungle Expert Warfare School in Panama. McFate served as an officer for eight years. He said that his military mentors were Stanley McChrystal, David Petraeus and John Abizaid.


As Jumpmaster, he was responsible for teaching soldiers enrolled in Army Airborne School military techniques for jumping from aircraft, and for managing jump operations in the airborne units within all branches of the U.S. military.

“In the airplane, you’re the guy who kicks them out,” McFate said. “In the world of the Army, it’s a pretty tough job. … I was a door-kicker.”

McFate was also Battle Captain for the Joint Task Force Noble Safeguard, an emergency deployment to defend Israel against Iraqi Scud-B missiles; Operations Officer for a 350-soldier Patriot missile brigade in Germany; and leader of a paratrooper platoon and a paratrooper company capable of no-notice deployment anywhere in the world within 18 hours.

When he left the Army in 2000, McFate said he “fell backwards into Amnesty International,” where he was a policy adviser and a member of its Military, Security and Police Working Group in Washington, D.C., until 2003.

At Amnesty International, he advised executive staff on issues regarding human rights, armed conflict and civil-military relationships. He also co-authored policy positions, met with Congressional and executive branch policy-makers, and worked with other non-governmental organizations.

“I … wanted to be a bridge-builder between the military and human rights NGOs,” McFate said. “(I worked on) human rights in conflict zones for two years. (It was) driving me schizoid, so I went to the Kennedy School.”

Three months into his first term at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, he said he was wondering why he was doing problem sets on economics and statistics.

“I was going across the yard, when I got a phone call,” McFate said. “(A voice) said, ‘You don’t know who we are, but we know who you are. … We want you to come overseas.’ ”

The call was from a senior vice president of a private military firm, Blackwater, that had a contract to raise an army in Africa. He wanted McFate to handle the fieldwork for them.

“I asked myself: Econ exam, or raise an army?” McFate said.


Leaving Harvard, he signed on as a program manager for DynCorp International, which he said was larger but less visible than Blackwater.

“I became their man in Africa,” McFate said. “I was doing, running, planning operations that would have been done by the CIA or other U.S. (intelligence agencies).”

For instance, while based in Kenya and Washington, D.C., he supported the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army.   

In Burundi, he helped prevent imminent genocide in the Great Lakes region when the rebel group tried to “re-trigger the 1994 Rwanda-Burundi genocide with the Burundian president’s assassination.”

In Liberia, McFate safely and fully demobilized warlords and rebuilt the country’s new army.

He also rode in the Sahara with armed groups, “conducted strategic reconnaissance for oil companies, (and) transacted arms deals in Eastern Europe.” Information about other operations cannot be recorded.

“I realized there were no old people in my line of work,” McFate said. “I was in my mid-30s. I was doing really crazy things. When I say, ‘no old people,’ (I mean) they get killed.”

“Sweet-talking” his way back into the Kennedy School, he graduated in 2006 with a Master of Public Policy.

He then served for a year as a consultant to the United States Institute of Peace, where he was instrumental in founding its Security Sector Governance Center.

The following year, as a business advisor at BearingPoint (now Deloitte), McFate counseled the company’s emerging markets practice on international relations and strategic positioning. In addition, he directed the “Stabilizing Fragile States” project for the Bipartisan Policy Center in 2008.


The following year, he consulted on U.S. inter-agency operations and national security policy for Booz Allen Hamilton, and began teaching graduate courses to senior military and civilian leaders at the National Defense University, where he is currently a professor. 

As a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at the centrist public policy think tank, The New America Foundation (now New America), from 2009 to 2010, McFate conducted independent research on the future of war.

“I’m seeing a facet of the world that no one’s seen — the private world of warfare,” he said. “Everyone’s talking about terrorism. No one’s talking about private wars and … private armies,” which are owned by corporations, such as multinational oil companies and investment banks.

After completing a dissertation — Durable Disorder: The Return of Private Armies and the Emergence of Neomedievalism — McFate earned a doctorate in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2012. 

From 2011 to 2016, he worked as an adjunct social scientist at The RAND Corporation. There he provided expertise on U.S. foreign policy and national security strategy, geopolitical threat analysis, defense structure, irregular warfare and the future of war.

In 2012, McFate also began working on a range of ongoing projects and activities as a senior fellow with the centers on international security and Africa at the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank and member of the Atlantic Treaty Association.

He served as vice president and acting chief operating officer at the strategic advisory and political risk consultancy TD International from 2012 to 2013. There he applied quantitative methods learned at the Kennedy School.

“One thing leads to another,” McFate said. “Nothing’s wasted.”

Beginning in 2013, he became an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Among his other academic responsibilities there, McFate developed and still teaches the graduate seminar on “The Art of War and Grand Strategy.”

After spending a sabbatical year as a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford in England, in 2017 and 2018, he became an adviser to Oxford’s Center for Technology and Global Affairs.

Through the years, McFate has also produced written commentary — for instance, “Billionaire Warlords: Why the Future is Medieval” for BigThink.com in February 2019 — as well as academic articles, book reviews and book chapters.

His nonfiction books began coming out in 2013 with Building Better Armies: An Insider’s Account of Liberia and The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for the World Order two years later. The New Rules of War has just been published, and Mercenaries and War: Understanding Private Warfare Today is forthcoming.

Shadow War emerged in 2016, and its sequel, Deep Black, in 2017. Currently McFate is editing the second draft of his third Tom Locke novel. Its title is yet to be determined.   

“States rule the world because they have militaries,” McFate said. “What happens when armies loosen their bonds from states? … Warfare has completely changed. … We have a low strategic IQ. War has moved on. We have to move on, too.”

Given the existential challenges that McFate has been illuminating, walking away from his youthful dream of becoming a concert violinist was the right move.

Paul Taylor Dance Company Closes Week-Long Residency with Three-Piece Bill in Collaboration with CSO

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Heather McGinley dances in “Dust” with from left, Sean Mahoney, Michelle Fleet and James Samson.

American modern dance visionary Paul Taylor was revered for his uncommon, unconventional  musicality: “I had no musical training. … Now, when I’m working with a piece of music, I count it in my own way, not as a musician would,” he said in a 2014 interview with the Chicago Tribune.

Harmoniously, the Paul Taylor Dance Company will close its inaugural residency at Chautauqua Institution with a melodic collaboration, joined by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, at 8:15 p.m. Saturday, August 10 in the Amphitheater.

Taylor founded Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1954, choreographing over 140 pieces until his death in the summer of 2018. The company’s residency at Chautauqua is a stop on its one-year tour commemorating Taylor’s life and legacy.

“Paul Taylor Dance Company is literally one of the most important ballet companies in the United States, and for me, it’s an incredible privilege to be able to provide the music for them, and for Chautauqua to have a company of that caliber on the line-up,” said Rossen Milanov, CSO conductor and music director.

The night will open with “Concertiana,” Taylor’s final work completed just before his death. The piece contrasts agitated, dynamic solos and duets with slower, simplistic silhouettes.

“Concertiana” is danced to “Concerto for Violin and Strings” by Eric Ewazen, a contemporary American composer whose works have been played in orchestra halls and on festival grounds — notably Woodstock — alike.

CSO violinist Krista Bennion Feeney will perform as a soloist in “Concertiana.” Feeney is a concertmaster for both the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra.

Taylor choreographed “Dust” — the second of the three-piece bill — for a friend who was deaf and mute. Set to 20th-century French composer Francis Poulenc’s “Concert Champêtre,” “Dust” illuminates mankind’s ability “to transcend all manner of physical and emotional disabilities,” said a Paul Taylor Dance Company spokesperson.

“ ‘Dust’ is a dark and twisted piece, both physically and emotionally,” said company dancer Robert Kleinendorst. “It is one of (Taylor’s) more physically demanding pieces.”

“Concert Champêtre” is a concerto for harpsichord and orchestra. In tonight’s concert, University of Kentucky professor of organ and CSO harpsichordist Schuyler Robinson will perform as the soloist in “Concert Champêtre.” Robinson has toured extensively both domestically and abroad.

The final piece, “Promethean Fire,” was created in the wake of 9/11, with Leopold Stokowski’s turn-of-the-century rearrangement of works by Johann Sebastian Bach.

“It is an architectural dance using pattern, space and time to its utmost,” Kleinendorst said.  “This piece is at once dark, passionate and ultimately hopeful.”

Throughout the week, Paul Taylor Dance Company members and Taylor 2 — the traveling company — have hosted Special Studies for both dancers and non-dancers, and open rehearsals, culminating in Wednesday’s and Saturday’s performances.

The Chautauqua Dance Circle will host a dance preview with the Paul Taylor Dance Company at 7 p.m. Saturday in Smith Wilkes Hall, prior to the company’s 8:15 p.m. Amp performance.

Week Eight Chaplain Mary Luti to Open Preaching Series with Call for Tenderness

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Luti

In her blog, “Sicut Locutus Est,” Mary Luti wrote that she was tired of moralizing sermons that exhort her to do something.

“Sometimes I just want help gazing at Jesus,” she wrote in her post, “Who Is the God Who Wants Me to Do It?” “Sometimes I am converted simply by a preacher making me feel in my flesh the ineffable beauty of the vast accomplished grace around me, the bewildering shame and glory of a love that loves me anyway.”

Luti, who is the Week Eight chaplain at Chautauqua, recalled as she wrote, “as an old, funny, faithful guy sitting in the pew behind me once muttered, after yet another moralizing harangue from the pulpit, ‘I think I know by now what God wants me to do. What I really want to know is, who is the God who wants me to do it?’ ”

Luti will preach at the 10:45 a.m. Sunday Ecumenical Service of Worship and Sermon in the Amphitheater. Her sermon title is “The Power of Tenderness: Rejoice with Me.” She will speak about her faith journey at the 5 p.m. Sunday Vespers in the Hall of Philosophy.

“I don’t always need to be exhorted. But I always need an encounter. I always need a door,” Luti wrote. “And your sermon could be that door if it’s not slammed shut with moralizing and demand. So give me some inspiration, illumination, pathos, identification, awe, contemplation, adoration, love, gratitude and praise every now and then. Please.”

Luti will offer inspiration and illumination at the 9:15 a.m. Ecumenical Services, Monday through Friday in the Amp. Her titles include “The Power of Pardon: Easter for Judas,” “The Power of Humility: The One-Down God,” “The Power of Patience: Therefore, Beloved,” “The Power of Presence: No One Is Alone,” and “The Power of Blessing: God Bless You.”    

Luti is a pastor and teacher ordained in the United Church of Christ, retired as a seminary educator and administrator.

After many years as a member of a Roman Catholic women’s community, with assignments in Rome, Madrid and Mexico City, Luti returned to Boston, and earned a doctorate in theology in the Jesuit faculty of Boston College.

From 1984 to 1998, she taught the history of Christian life and thought at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts (now Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School). During this period, she also served as director of the school’s Center for the Ministry of the Laity and as associate dean for academic programs.

After serving two years as a consultant for congregational development at South Church, UCC, in Springfield, Massachusetts, she was called in 2000 to serve as senior minister of the historic First Church in Cambridge, Congregational UCC, in Harvard Square, the 16th minister and the sole woman pastor in the community’s 382 years.

She returned to Andover Newton in 2008 as visiting professor of worship and preaching, and was appointed the first director of the newly inaugurated Wilson Chapel. She was recognized with the outstanding teaching award of the United Church of Christ at its 2011 General Synod.

Luti is the author of Teresa of Avila’s Way, a volume in the series, “The Way of the Christian Mystics,” and numerous other publications on topics of the Christian life and practice.

She is a founding member of The Daughters of Abraham, a national network of interfaith women’s book groups formed after 9/11, whose mission is to provide a replicable grassroots platform for greater understanding, respect and reconciliation among women of the Abrahamic faiths.

Week Eight Letter From the President

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Dear Fellow Chautauquans,

Welcome to the eighth week of our 146th Assembly. We’ve just come off a week centering on the notion of grace in our world. I’m grateful to Krista Tippett and her “On Being” team for their week of outstanding work. As stark as our pivot may seem, I think moving from grace to this week’s theme of “Shifting Global Power” is more natural than may appear at first blush, as our shifting global power is perhaps in need of grace. I also don’t think we can fully understand the frame we’d like to see in our global systems without exploring notions of grace, justice, peace and civility … and so we dive into this week as we continue our season’s journey.

Power is shifting on the international stage. It always has been. During this week, we will focus on the geopolitical hot-spots of the moment, examining the new holders, and even the new definitions, of global power. Each day, we will explore one topic or definition of power, and identify the major players in that arena. And we will ask, how is power even defined, beyond money and military might? Is it natural resources, technology, education, diplomacy and aid, culture? As power shifts, so, too, do identities and values. Are there ways power ought to shift?

In our companion Interfaith Lecture Series, we focus on power through the idea of “soft power.” Power is often conflated with might, but increasingly faith traditions are promoting new paradigms for conflict transformation, understanding and collaboration through shared visions and ideals, restorative practices, relationship-building and rituals — all the components of soft power. This week, we will learn from those who are utilizing soft power for global peacemaking, reconciliation and quality of life. 

I have been fascinated by the notion of soft power since my days serving as president and CEO of Youth For Understanding. The entire notion of student exchange is that citizens can deeply influence the course of nations when they understand other cultures and systems, and use that knowledge to sway their respective societies. That’s one of the reasons that I love the topic this week, as our citizen group here at Chautauqua assembles to wrestle with this. 

Outside of a fascinating and important topic, we have some outstanding guides to help us this week. Chautauqua favorite Bill Moyers returns for a 2 p.m. lecture on Monday. We regret that he cannot join us for the entire week, as originally planned (doctor’s orders), but are still incredibly grateful that he will set the stage for these important conversations. Bill has been recognized as one of the unique voices of our time. His career in broadcast journalism has spanned five decades and earned him more than 36 Emmy Awards, nine Peabody Awards, six Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, the National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the PEN USA Courageous Advocacy Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute. He’s also just a lovely person and friend to us; I’m excited to have him back. 

This week, we award The Chautauqua Prize, honoring 2019 winner All the Names They Used for God: Stories and celebrating its author, Anjali Sachdeva. I have followed this book since it showed up on the Prize shortlist. If you haven’t read it yet, grab a copy at our bookstore. Anjali is going to be a significant voice in the literary arts in the coming years, and I’m elated to elevate this brilliant piece of literature.

And while all of our speakers are insightful, I’m so fascinated by Tarana J. Burke, the founder of the MeToo Movement. For more than 25 years, Tarana has worked at the intersection of racial justice, arts and culture and sexual violence. The MeToo Movement sparked a major sea of change in the equality movement, and her journey and story allows us to take a very different spin on shifting global power.

As I look at the list of this week’s arts offerings, I’m reminded that many of our programs in our Schools of Performing and Visual Arts have, or are about to, come to a close. Our students bring such incredible energy to our campus. I’m always sad to see them go, as it starts to signal a winding down of our season. I want to publicly thank them, and the faculty and staff of these programs, for an incredible year.

While for some this week marks the second-to-last week of our summer assembly, I know that for many it is the first week of your Chautauqua experience. We welcome those just joining us as we take our community conversation to the global stage. May it fill us with the knowledge to be better global citizens because of it.

-Michael E. Hill

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