CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. — Chautauqua Institution proudly announces the program lineup for Week One of its 2022 Summer Assembly. The week, which begins June 25 and concludes July 2, features events, lectures and classes both in person on the grounds and livestreamed through the CHQ Assembly online platform. Week One includes renowned guests such as CNN host and Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria; Grammy Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell with internationally acclaimed soprano Larisa Martínez; Episcopal Bishop of Washington the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde; and National Book Award-winning author George Packer.

Chautauqua Institution returns to a more typical level of activity on its lakeside grounds in 2022, including full schedules for all major programs, back in their usual venues at full capacity. Visit VacationSafely.chq.org for current health and safety precautions, which may vary by program.

Chautauqua’s nine-week season features weekday lectures focusing on weekly cultural themes. Week One examines “What Should be America’s Role in the World?” in which speakers in the 10:45 a.m. Chautauqua Lecture Series program discuss the state of U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy, while historically to America’s historical role on the world stage. The 2 p.m. Interfaith Lecture Series examines the theme “America’s Global Conscience,” in which spiritual leaders guide us in a conversation on what America’s role in the world should be as a leader of conscience and integrity.

Chautauqua Institution President Michael E. Hill will open the 2022 Summer Assembly with the traditional Three Taps of the Gavel, immediately preceding Sunday worship at 10:45 a.m. in the Chautauqua Amphitheater.

The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde will serve as the guest chaplain for the week. Bishop Budde serves as spiritual leader for 86 Episcopal congregations and 10 Episcopal schools in the District of Columbia and four Maryland counties. The first woman elected to this position, she also serves as the chair and president of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation, which oversees the ministries of the Washington National Cathedral and Cathedral schools.

AMPHITHEATER & HALL OF PHILOSOPHY LECTURES

MONDAY
Chautauqua Lecture Series: Fareed Zakaria is a bestselling author, columnist for The Washington Post, and host of “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” a weekly international and domestic affairs program that airs on CNN and CNN International. Zakaria, who last spoke at Chautauqua in 2016, returns to the Amphitheater with his insights and analysis of geopolitics and international affairs to open the 2022 Chautauqua Lecture Series.

Interfaith Lecture Series: Designated by Newsweek Magazine as the most influential rabbi in America and by The Washington Post as the “quintessential religious lobbyist on Capitol Hill,” Rabbi David Saperstein served as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom during the Obama administration’s second term, carrying out his responsibilities as the country’s chief diplomat on religious freedom issues.

TUESDAY
Chautauqua Lecture Series: Constanze Stelzenmüller is an expert on German, European, and trans-Atlantic foreign and security policy and strategy and the inaugural holder of the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings Institution. She will examine what the Russian invasion of Ukraine means for America’s role in Europe.

Interfaith Lecture Series: Mohamed Elsanousi is the executive director of the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, a global network that builds bridges between grassroots peacemakers and global players to work towards sustainable peace. Prior to this position, Elsanousi was the director of Interfaith and Government Relations for the Islamic Society of North America.

WEDNESDAY
Chautauqua Lecture Series: Kathryn Stoner is a senior fellow and Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where she is also senior fellow at the Center on International Security and Cooperation. She is the author of Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order, and will discuss how the post-Cold War era of global politics has shifted as a result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, and how the United States can most effectively navigate this new era.

Interfaith Lecture Series: The Very Rev. Michael Battle is the Herbert Thompson Professor of Church and Society and Director of the Desmond Tutu Center at General Theological Seminary in New York. He was ordained a priest by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1993. The latest of his 11 published books is Desmond Tutu: A Spiritual Biography of South Africa’s Confessor.

THURSDAY
Chautauqua Lecture Series: Kori Schake leads foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where her research areas include national security, civil-military relations, and NATO. She will discuss the current state of American foreign policy, where the Biden Administration stands in terms of relationships with U.S. allies — and enemies — and how the country can improve its geopolitical strengths.

Interfaith Lecture Series: Satpal Singh is a founding trustee of the Sikh Council for Interfaith Relations and a former chairperson of the World Sikh Council – America Region. He is also a member of the Executive Council of Religions for Peace, USA, and is on the Religious Leaders Circle of the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees. 

FRIDAY
Chautauqua Lecture Series: George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of the National Book Award-winning The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. Drawing on his most recent book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, and insights he’s garnered through his journalistic work since the book’s publication in the fall of 2021, Packer will offer a hopeful new path forward by looking toward a common American identity.

Interfaith Lecture Series: Georgette Bennett is an award-winning sociologist, widely published author, popular lecturer, and former broadcast journalist. In 2013, Bennett founded the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees (MFA) and has since worked to raise awareness and mobilize over $250 million+ benefiting 2.7 million Syrian war victims. In 1992, she founded the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding.

ADDITIONAL LECTURES

3:30 p.m. Monday, June 27, Hall of Philosophy: Longtime Chautauqua collaborator Geoffrey Kemp, the senior director of regional security programs at the Center for the National Interest, continues a three-decade tradition of providing yearly Middle East Updates. Joining him is Nikolas V. Gvosdev, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College.

3:30 p.m. Thursday, June 30, Hall of Philosophy: Poet Jane Hirshfield presents Ledger, the first opening selection of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle’s reading season. Ledger is a pivotal book of personal, ecological, and political reckoning tuned toward issues of consequence to all who share this world’s current and future fate.

AMPHITHEATER ENTERTAINMENT

Aside from the daily lectures, Week One features a variety of arts and entertainment programs live at the Amphitheater each evening.

12 p.m. Saturday, June 25, Amphitheater: Start the Chautauqua 2022 season early with a special showing of work by acclaimed choreographer Christopher Williams featuring New York City Ballet principal dancer Taylor Stanley among a cast of notable contemporary dancers. The open rehearsal marks the culmination of the group’s two-week residency at Chautauqua.

8:15 p.m. Saturday, June 25, Amphitheater: Celebrated violinist and Chautauqua favorite Joshua Bell, and internationally acclaimed soprano Larisa Martínez, are excited to present “Voice and the Violin” for Opening Night of the Chautauqua Summer Assembly. The program features the artists’ arrangements of beloved arias and modern classics, highlighting the beauty and collaboration of violin and voice repertoire.

2:30 p.m. Sunday, June 26, Amphitheater: The premier touring musical representative for the United States Army, the internationally acclaimed United States Army Field Band travels thousands of miles each year presenting a variety of music to enthusiastic audiences throughout the nation and abroad. The Field Band is joined by the Soldiers’ Chorus, whose performances include the music of Broadway, opera, barbershop quartet and Americana.

8:15 p.m. Monday, June 27, Amphitheater: For 50 years, Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) has demonstrated how the power of art can transform lives by providing access to ballet for all. Founded in 1969 by the legendary Arthur Mitchell and his former teacher, Karen Shook, DTH has grown into a globally acclaimed dance institution that occupies a distinguished place in New York City’s cultural landscape and the forefront of American artistic achievement.

8:15 p.m. Tuesday, June 28, Amphitheater: Ben Folds is widely regarded as one of the major music influencers of our generation. He’s created an enormous body of genre-bending music that includes pop albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and numerous collaborative records. His last album was a blend of pop songs and his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra that soared to No. 1 on both the Billboard classical and classical crossover charts.

8:15 p.m. Wednesday, June 29, Amphitheater: Alexander Gavrylyuk serves as artistic advisor and artist-in-residence of the Chautauqua Piano Program. When not performing and teaching at Chautauqua, the celebrated Ukrainian-born pianist’s international career has included appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Scottish Symphony, and the Hollywood Bowl. A portion of single ticket revenue from this program will be donated to International Rescue Committee for relief efforts in Ukraine.

8:15 p.m. Thursday, June 30, Amphitheater: Conducted by Music Director Rossen Milanov, the Institution’s resident Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra presents its “Opening Night” performance, with selections from composers Jessie Montgomery and Jean Sibelius.

8:15 p.m. Friday, July 1, Amphitheater: Sons of Mystro use their violins to interpret reggae classics, American pop songs and their own creations accompanied by a DJ and a drummer. Mentored by Chautauqua favorite Black Violin, Malcom and Umoja are emerging as new voices that have a unique and uplifting message on and off the stage. 

MORE ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT OFFERINGS
Chautauqua’s artistic venues around the grounds will once again host a full season of programs during the 2022 Summer Assembly. Patrons are advised to bring a mask with them, as some performances and venues will require masks of all audience members.

Current Chautauqua Visual Arts Exhibitions at include “Undercurrents,” “All that Glitters,” “Natural Rhythms,” and “The Shape of Things to Come.” 

4 p.m. Monday, June 27, Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall: The ensemble Cuarteto Latinoamericano kicks off the Chautauqua Chamber Music season with acoustic and electric guitarist Jiji.

7 p.m. Monday, June 27, Chautauqua Cinema: The beloved Chautauqua Cinema begins its weekly Family Film Series, available to anyone with a Chautauqua Gate Pass, with the acclaimed animated tale “My Neighbor Tortoro.”

5 & 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 28, Smith Wilkes Hall: Doug Berky presents his show “No Show” — displaying his many skills including unicycling, juggling, sousaphone playing and mask theatre — as part of the Family Entertainment Series.

5  p.m. Tuesday, June 28, Chautauqua Cinema: Chautauqua Cinema launches its weekly CHQ Documentary Series with a screening of “SHAME,” the story of Pakistani woman Mukhtār Mā’ī, who is also the subject of the 2022 Chautauqua Opera production Thumbprint.

4 p.m. Friday, July 1, Norton Hall: The Chautauqua Opera Company presents the premiere of Thumbprint, a chamber opera inspired by the experiences of Mukhtār Mā’ī, a contemporary real-life warrior for women’s rights and education in Pakistan.

7:30 p.m. Friday, July 1, Bratton Theater: Chautauqua Theater Companypresents the premiere of Indecent, a play full of joyful human passion inspired by true events surrounding the controversial 1923 Broadway production of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance.

MORE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENGAGEMENT

Chautauqua’s Mystic Heart Interspiritual Meditation Program offers community members daily meditation sessions at 7:45 a.m. in the Presbyterian House Chapel throughout the week.

Chautauqua Dialogues provide a forum in which people of diverse backgrounds can bring their political, religious, cultural, and social beliefs, experiences and knowledge to conversations that matter. They take place Wednesdays through Saturdays of the Summer Assembly at various times, but primarily in the afternoon. 

ABOUT CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer — and year-round through the CHQ Assembly online platforms — with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through engaged dialogue.

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