CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. — Chautauqua Institution is proud to announce the program lineup for Week Nine of its 2021 season. The week, which begins August 21 and concludes August 29, features events, lectures, and classes both in-person on the grounds and livestreamed through CHQ Assembly. Week Nine includes a spectacular lineup of popular entertainment, including the legendary, award-winning singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson; one of the best known and most respected hip-hop acts in the business The Roots in a unique double-bill show with jazz legend Trombone Shorty; four-time Grammy winner Jason Isbell and his band The 400 Unit; and Grammy Award-winning and platinum-selling American roots band Old Crow Medicine Show; plus lectures from popular writers Evan Osnos of The New Yorker and author and historian of Christianity Diana Butler Bass.

Chautauqua Institution’s nine-week season features weekday lectures focusing on weekly cultural themes. Week Nine examines “Resilience,” in which speakers in the 10:30 a.m. Chautauqua Lecture Series program discuss what drives people to keep going when outside forces are working against them, as well as the resilience that emerged during the tumult of 2020 and what that tells us about humanity. The 1 p.m. Interfaith Lecture Series further examines the same theme by considering the residual trauma of uncountable historical tragedies and inhumanities and by looking for the wisdom that’s necessary for refusing to give up hope.

The Rev. John C. Dorhauer will serve as the guest chaplain for the week. Dorhauer is the ninth general minister and president of the United Church of Christ. An author and theologian, he has initiated conversations and curriculum on race and white privilege, conducted the first legal same-sex wedding service in 2014, serves as vice-chair of the National Council of Churches (NCC), and has co-chaired the NCC’s United to End Racism campaign.

AMPHITHEATER LECTURES

MONDAY

Chautauqua Lecture Series: Lynsey Addario is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who covers conflict zones across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa and regularly contributes to National Geographic, The New York Times and Time. It is the resilience she’s seen and documented throughout her career that she will discuss as part of the Chautauqua Lecture Series.

Interfaith Lecture Series: Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers is rabbi and cantor for the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh and, in wake of the horrific 2018 attack in the Tree of Life, has set about sending the key message that love is stronger than hate. He has pledged to remove the “H word” from his speech and has spoken throughout the United States on the proliferation of H speech.

TUESDAY

Chautauqua Lecture Series: Françoise Adan is the chief whole health and wellbeing officer for University Hospitals and the director for the UH Connor Integrative Health Network based in Cleveland, Ohio. Adan will share a model of resilience she formalized for health care and discuss how such a model has application across sectors and communities.
Interfaith Lecture Series: Colum McCann is an international bestselling author whose fiction has been published in 35 languages, and a cofounder of the global charity Narrative 4. His National Book Award-winning novel Let the Great World Spin, an allegory of 9/11, answers the question, “How do we continue to live after the most precious thing is lost?”

WEDNESDAY

Chautauqua Lecture Series: Keisha N. Blain is an award-winning historian of the 20th century United States, an associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and the president of the African American Intellectual History Society. She joins the Chautauqua Lecture Series for a frank discussion of resistance and resilience in the face of racism.

Interfaith Lecture Series: Diana Butler Bass is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality. At Chautauqua she will inform the audience about spiritual trends and challenge conventional narratives about religious practice, sharing her spiritual wisdom and smart theology. 

THURSDAY

Chautauqua Lecture Series: Evan Osnos is an award-winning author and staff writer at The New Yorker, specializing in politics and foreign affairs. Known for his articulate and accessible commentary and offering assessments of the biggest stories of the day, Osnos closes the 2021 Chautauqua Lecture Series with a presentation on “American Bedrock: Renewing the Ties That Bind Us,” discussing the resilience of American democracy and those who are rebuilding community and prosperity in the 21st century.

ARTS PROGRAMMING 

Aside from the daily lectures, Week Nine features a variety of afternoon and evening arts and entertainment programs live at the Amphitheater or the Performance Pavilion on Pratt, with some offerings available via livestream and on-demand through the CHQ Assembly platform.

4 p.m. Saturday, August 21, Performance Pavilion on Pratt: A one-man show about the first African-American to serve as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Chautauqua Theater Company’s Thurgood guides audiences through Thurgood Marshall’s childhood in Baltimore to his role in the civil rights movement, to his historic victory in Brown v. Board of Education, and ultimately to his Supreme Court appointment. An additional staging, and the closing performance of this show, will take place at 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 22.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, August 21, Amphitheater: The Roots and Trombone Shorty, two of the most acclaimed acts in jazz and hip-hop, present a one-of-a-kind double-bill performance. 

2:30 p.m. Sunday, August 22, Amphitheater: A tradition for over 60 years, The Barbershop Harmony Parade brings together several a cappella ensembles each year and, this year, will feature the Last Resort Quartet.

8:15 p.m. Monday, August 23, Amphitheater: Founded in 1985 by Artistic Director David Parsons and Tony Award-winning lighting designer Howell Binkley, Parsons Dance is a contemporary American dance company, internationally renowned for its energized, athletic ensemble work. 

8:15 p.m. Tuesday, August 24, Amphitheater: Formed by Founding Artistic Director Luke Fleming, the Manhattan Chamber Players is a chamber music collective of New York-based musicians who share the common aim of performing the greatest works in the chamber repertoire at the highest level.  

8:15 p.m. Wednesday, August 25, Amphitheater: A rare father-daughter collaboration features Clarice Assad, Grammy-nominated vocalist, composer and pianist, and her father, guitarist Sérgio Assad, of the legendary Assad Brothers. The pair will present an evening of Brazilian jazz vocals, samba, and guitar.

8:15 p.m. Thursday, August 26, Amphitheater: The Grammy Award-winning and platinum selling American roots band Old Crow Medicine Show join us for their Chautauqua debut. 

8:15 p.m. Friday, August 27, Amphitheater: Four-time Grammy winner and widely acclaimed songwriter Jason Isbell is joined by The 400 Unit to share music from their newest album Reunions. 

8:15 p.m. Saturday, August 28, Amphitheater: For the final evening performance of the Chautauqua 2021 season, the legendary singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson returns to the Amphitheater stage. Robinson’s career spans more than five decades of hits and awards, including induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. 

2:30 p.m. Sunday, August 29, Amphitheater: The 2021 season ends with an entertaining and emotional performance by The United States Army Field Band & Soldiers’ Chorus. A Chautauqua favorite, this band has participated in numerous presidential inaugural parades, supported many diplomatic missions overseas, and is sure to instill pride in our American heritage during this final event of the summer season. 

ADDITIONAL LECTURES/CONVERSATIONS ON CHQ ASSEMBLY 

Chautauqua proudly continues some cherished programming online in lieu of additional in-person programming during the 2021 Summer Assembly. 

3:30 p.m. Sunday, August 22: The Chautauqua Writers’ Center presents a free Sunday reading with writer-in-residence Sally Wen Mao and Martha Cooley

On demand: The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle presents Eliese Colette Goldbach’s Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit, which tells Goldbach’s story of having worked in a mill in Cleveland’s industrial valley and learning to know and respect the place, its workers, and herself.

1 p.m. Friday, August 13: The Rev. Shantell Hinton Hill, equity officer with the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, presents as part of the 2021 African American Heritage House Lecture Series. 

MORE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENGAGEMENT

Current Chautauqua Visual Arts Gallery Exhibitions include “Materials Redefined,” “Tenacity,” “Improvising: New Photographs by Julie Blackmon,” “Pour Spill Drip Stain,” the CVA School of Art Participants Exhibition and “Resilience,” the Open CVA Members Exhibition. Check art.chq.org for closing dates for individual in-person exhibitions.

Chautauqua’s Mystic Heart Meditation Program offers community members daily meditation sessions at 7:30 a.m. throughout the week.

A new initiative in 2021, Chautauqua Cinema Under the Stars presents “Wolf Walkers” on the Athenaeum Lawn at dusk on Aug. 21.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets are available for purchase at tickets.chq.org and at the Main Gate Welcome Center Ticket Office on the day of your visit. Morning Program Tickets are $30; Afternoon Program Tickets are $15. The fee for Evening Program tickets varies based on the evening entertainment. For tickets and information, visit tickets.chq.org or call 716-357-6250. Program Tickets permit access to the Chautauqua Institution grounds four hours prior to the scheduled start time of an event. Patrons are invited to arrive early and explore the grounds and other amenities, including free access to world-class art galleries, plus shops and restaurants. Admission to Chautauqua is always free on Sundays.  

ABOUT CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. 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 civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution’s mission.

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