Chautauqua Institution and Chautauqua Cinema today announced a plan to integrate operations to create a more seamless and enhanced guest experience. The first phase of this integration will take place during the 2021 season, when Chautauqua Cinema and Chautauqua Institution will work more closely together. Chautauqua Cinema will provide support and leadership for all motion picture experiences on the Institution grounds, including planned outdoor movies as well as selected events in the Chautauqua Amphitheater, with films being presented at Chautauqua Cinema as COVID-19 regulations permit. The second phase of the plan will occur starting in fall 2021, when Chautauqua Cinema...

Opera, Theater open to all to be presented in an outdoor venue on Pratt Avenue Updated May 14, 2021 Following analysis of the potential use of Norton Hall as the primary venue for Chautauqua Theater Company and Chautauqua Opera Company performances in 2021, Institution officials have opted instead to construct a temporary performance pavilion on Pratt Avenue for the presentation of performances with lawn seating open to all gate pass holders.  The plan includes the presentation of approximately 40 theater, opera and selected other programs over the nine-week Summer Assembly.  In addition to lawn space open for self-seating and requiring...

Now in Fourth Year, Award Honors Innovative Short Fiction or Nonfiction   Chautauqua Institution today announced that it is accepting submissions for the Chautauqua Janus Prize, now in its fourth year. This unique literary prize celebrates an emerging writer’s single work of short fiction or nonfiction for daring formal and aesthetic innovations that upset and reorder readers’ imaginations. In addition to receiving a $5,000 award, the winner will give a reading during the 2021 summer season as part of the Institution’s CHQ Assembly online platform and appear in a forthcoming issue of the literary journal Chautauqua. The prize is funded by a generous donation from Chautauquans Barbara and Twig Branch.   Named for Janus, the Roman god who looks to both the...

Dear Chautauqua Community, My thoughts and prayers are with each of you as we look toward the end of a tumultuous 2020 and turn our thoughts to preparing for an in-person summer assembly season for 2021.  Earlier this year, when considering the slate of 2021 weekly themes, we decided to close our summerlong exercise in shared learning on a simple yet profound topic: Resilience. We will seek to conclude our time together in 2021 on that hopeful note, with programs aligned with this description: What drives people to keep going when forces outside their control work against them? And what does that tell...

Authorizes Staff to Plan for Limited Programs, Capacity Pending Government Go-ahead, Regulations Chautauqua Institution this week announced the outline of a plan to present programming for in-person audiences during its 2021 summer assembly season, pending evolving guidance and regulations from state, federal and local government officials. The approach was approved by the Institution’s Board of Trustees at its Dec. 9 meeting, and was shared with members of the community via a series of webinars (included below). “This working plan is the result of our team having spent the entire fall consulting experts, learning from the experience of industry colleagues, and...

Two-part Live Online Event on Dec. 8 to Feature Author Mikhal Dekel CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y., & WASHINGTON, D.C. — Chautauqua Institution and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum today announced a jointly presented online program titled “The Tehran Children: Iran’s Unexpected & Suppressed Connection to the Holocaust,” inspired by Mikhal Dekel’s 2019 memoir Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey. Dekel will participate in each segment of the two-part, 90-minute presentation, to air live beginning 7 p.m. EST Tuesday, Dec. 8, on the Institution’s CHQ Assembly video channel.   A finalist for the 2020 Chautauqua Prize, Tehran Children tells the little-known story of the of the more than 1 million Polish Jews who fled the...

From President Michael E. Hill This year has brought challenges unlike any most of us have ever known. There is little about daily life that is not markedly different from a year ago. We are more attuned than ever to our physical and mental health, and to the presence — and absence — of others. Our nation has endured parallel crises of this pandemic, economic struggle, and social upheaval over issues of racism and justice, all taking place against the backdrop of a rancorous presidential election. The list of disruptions and discontinuities goes on and on; you know and feel...

Celebrated Musician and Jamestown Native First to Hold Jared Jacobsen Endowed Chair CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. — Chautauqua Institution today announced the appointment of Joshua Stafford as the Department of Religion’s Director of Sacred Music, including its organist, and the first to hold the newly established Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist of Chautauqua Institution. Stafford served as Institution organist in an interim capacity during the 2020 summer assembly season. An internationally renowned and award-winning organist and native of neighboring Jamestown, Stafford succeeds the late Jared Jacobsen, his mentor and teacher, as the principal performer on the historic Massey Memorial Organ. Stafford’s...

ROCHESTER, NY— Internationally renowned string quartet the Ying Quartet, in partnership with Bowdoin International Music Festival, Chautauqua Institution, and the Eastman School of Music, will present the full Beethoven String Quartet cycle in a series of concerts throughout the 2020/2021 season, in honor of Beethoven’s 250th birthday. The Yings have given the series the overall title Only Art Held Me. The first in a series of 10 concerts will be held Sunday, December 6 at 4 p.m., including a Q&A with the Ying Quartet after the performance. All concerts in the series will premiere on Chautauqua’s CHQ Assembly video platform and will be available...

Download presentation slides » Good morning. We reach out today following two days of online meetings of the Chautauqua Institution Board of Trustees. As promised in my email and video message to you last month, I am reporting now on the meeting outcomes, the status of planning for our 2021 Summer Assembly, and to invite your input. I want to thank you for your patience this fall as our staff has focused on keeping our grounds-based community safe while also planning for our forthcoming 148th gathering as a Chautauqua community. The context of this planning is influenced greatly by: While...