As we conclude our 2024 Chautauqua Lecture Series, and this week’s discussions on “Rising Together: Our Century of Creativity and Collaboration,” in partnership with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, we are honored this morning to host a panel discussion featuring three celebrated individuals who have graced Chautauqua’s stages this past week: Wynton Marsalis, Kate Hamill, and the Rev. Otis Moss III. Since we have had plenty of opportunities to engage with these folks this week, you will be pleased to know that I will keep their introductions brief.
Wynton Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer, bandleader, educator and a leading advocate of American culture. For his 1997 oratorio Blood on the Fields, Mr. Marsalis became the first jazz musician ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and he extended his achievements in that piece with All Rise, which was first performed in 1999, and which received two seminal performances on Wednesday and Thursday evenings of this week. I hope you were present for one or both -- and please join me in thanking Wynton, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and our very own Music School Festival Orchestra and music director Timothy Muffitt, for the gift of such transcendent artistic achievement.
Kate Hamill is an award-winning, New York City-based actor/playwright. In 2017, The Wall Street Journal named Ms. Hamill Playwright of the Year, a title she has maintained through being among the top 10 most-produced playwrights in the U.S. for the last five consecutive years. Ms. Hamill’s passion lies in crafting feminist, female-centered classics, exploring the complexities of women’s stories through original plays and adaptations. Her work, characterized by theatricality and a keen exploration of social and gender issues, delves into the eternal struggle to reconcile identity with societal expectations. These themes are prominent in her newest work, The Light and The Dark, which has enjoyed a world-premiere run right here with our resident Chautauqua Theater Company from Aug. 15 to 23 -- you have one more opportunity to see Kate star in this remarkable production, at 2:30 p.m. today in Bratton Theater. Purchase tickets at tickets.chq.org, the Bratton kiosk, or at any ticket window while supplies last.
A third-generation warrior for civil and human rights, the Rev. Otis Moss III has built his ministry on community advancement and racial and social justice activism. As senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Rev. Moss routinely preaches and practices a Black theology that unapologetically calls attention to the problems of mass incarceration, environmental justice, and economic inequality. His latest book project, Dancing in the Darkness: Spiritual Lessons for Thriving in Turbulent Times, has been lauded as a “life-affirming guide to the practical, political, and spiritual challenges of our day.” Utilizing the scholarship of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Howard Thurman, alongside biblical texts, a bevy of religious traditions, Black culture, and his own personal experiences, Rev. Moss offers up a methodology on performing spiritual resistance by uniting two pillars of his ministry: love and justice. We are so lucky to have had Otis as the capstone chaplain of our sesquicentennial summer, and I wish to offer my gratitude to him for sharing his passion, theology and witness with us all week.
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26 сен 2024
