Opera
  • Home
  • CHQ Assembly
  • 2025 Season
        • La bohème
        • Lincoln in the Bardo
        • Ida by Lamplight | Sitcom
  • About
        • History
        • Past Productions
        • Leadership
        • Performance Venues & Accessibility
        • Opera in the Schools
  • Young Artists
        • Young Artist Program
        • Audition FAQs
  • Alumni
  • Opera Conservatory
  • Media
  • Opera Guild
  • Donate
  • Buy Tickets
Theater
  • Home
  • CHQ Assembly
  • 2025 Season
        • The Real James Bond…Was Dominican
        • Execution of Justice
        • The Witnesses
  • About
        • Past Productions
  • Conservatory
        • Acting Conservatory
        • FutureNow Stage Directing Fellowships
        • Design Fellowships
        • FAQ
  • New Play Development
        • New Plays at CTC
        • Young Playwrights Project
  • Your Visit
  • Get Involved
  • News
        • Blog Posts
        • In The News
        • The Chautauquan Daily
        • Alumni in the News
  • Donate
  • Buy Tickets
Give
  • Home
  • CHQ Assembly
  • Make a Donation
        • Chautauqua Fund
        • Boundless
        • Endowment
        • Monthly Giving
  • Ways to Give
        • Appreciated Securities
        • Capital Support
        • Chautauqua Fund
        • Endowment/Naming
        • Gift Planning
        • Honor Your Host
        • Honorary/Memorial
        • Matching Gifts
        • Monthly Giving
        • Program Sponsor
        • Scholarships
  • Donor Recognition
        • 1874 Society
        • Bell Tower Society
        • Bestor Society
        • Daugherty Society
        • Lewis Miller Circle
        • NOW Generation
        • Foundation Membership
        • Honorary and Memorial Tree Program
  • Foundation
        • History & Mission
        • Board of Directors
        • Foundation Staff
        • Foundation Publications
        • Contact
  • Advancement
        • Institution Board of Trustees
        • Advancement Staff
        • Advancement Publications
        • Volunteers
        • Contact
  • Donate
  • Buy Tickets
Foundation
  • Home
  • CHQ Assembly
  • Mission
  • Board of Directors
  • Staff
  • Publications
  • Membership
  • Endowment/Naming
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Buy Tickets
  • About Us
    • News & Announcements
    • 150 Forward Strategic Plan
    • Boundless
    • Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) at Chautauqua
    • Media Resources
    • Staff Directory
  • Employment
  • Resources
    • FAQs
    • CHQ FAQ Google Group
    • Safety & Security Department
    • Shared Promise
    • The Smith Memorial Library
    • Post Office
    • Services & Amenities
    • Business Center
    • Chautauqua Institution Policies
    • AED Locations on Grounds
    • The Chautauquan Daily
    • Chautauqua Lake Conservation
    • Chautauqua Institution Archives
  • CHQ Assembly
  • Community Portal
  • Giving
    • Donate Securely Online
    • Boundless
    • Donor Recognition
    • Ways to Give
    • Chautauqua Foundation
    • Advancement
  • Visit
        • Plan Your Visit
          • 2025 Season
          • 2026 Season
          • Visit Must-Dos
          • Experience Planner
          • Accessibility at Chautauqua
        • Eat, Drink & Shop
          • Dining
          • Heirloom Restaurant
          • Shopping & Services
          • Chautauqua Bookstore
        • Places To Stay
          • Athenaeum Hotel
          • Private Accommodations
          • Denominations and Religious Organizations
          • Nearby Accommodations
        • Explore the Grounds and Gardens
          • Maps and Directions
          • Bus and Tram Tracker
          • Plaza Cam
          • Chautauqua Lake Conservation
        • Group Travel
          • Chautauqua Travels
          • Book a Group Visit
          • Tour Operators
          • Road Scholar
          • Chautauqua on a Budget
          • Tour Chautauqua County
  • Things to Do
        • Events
          • All Events
          • Event Calendar
          • Weekly Themes
          • Experience Planner
          • Grid Calendar
        • Classes
        • Performing & Visual Arts
        • Education
        • Recreation
        • Chautauqua Cinema
        • Religion
        • Youth & Family
        • Experience Community
        • Discover CHQ
  • Gate Passes, Tickets & Registrations
        • Buy Gate Passes and Parking
          • Long-term Gate Passes & Parking
        • Buy Single Event Tickets
          • Concert Tickets
          • Lecture & Afternoon Tickets
        • Register for a Youth Program
        • Register for Special Studies Classes
  • Festival Schools
        • School of Music
          • Conducting Fellowship
          • Instrumental Program
          • Opera Conservatory
          • Piano Program
        • School of Dance
        • School of Art
        • Theater Conservatory
        • Alumni
        • Chautauqua Connections
  • Buy Tickets
  • Give
  • Donate
  • Buy Tickets

looking for something?

  • About
  • Staff
  • 150 Forward Strategic Plan
  • Board of Trustees
    • Inside CHQ
    • Trustee Nomination and Election Process
    • Presidential Search
  • Interim Chief Executive
  • Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) at Chautauqua
    • IDEA Columns in The Chautauquan Daily
    • Creating an Inclusive Chautauqua & Beyond
    • Forum Dialogues 2025 
  • The Miller Bell Tower
  • Archives
  • Chautauqua Magazine
  • Media Resources

About

Chautauqua Institution is a not-for-profit, 750-acre community on Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York State. Approximately 7,500 people reside there on any day during the nine-week summer season. More than 100,000 attend scheduled public events each year, and even more engage online via the streaming channel CHQ Assembly.

Our Mission

Chautauqua Institution is dedicated to the exploration of the best in human values and the enrichment of life through a program that explores the important religious, social and political issues of our times; stimulates provocative, thoughtful involvement of individuals and families in creative response to such issues; and promotes excellence and creativity in the appreciation, performance and teaching of the arts. 

Vision Statement 

Chautauqua aspires to create an informed, engaged and renewed public that fosters and actively contributes to a more civil society, nationally and within the various communities represented by its individual constituents and partners. 

Shared Values 

Chautauqua is shared community where people with a thirst for learning and an interest in ongoing self-development are drawn and thrive. Chautauqua’s work and interactions with others, as an institution and a community, are inspired and guided by a common set of beliefs and commitments. Together, the institution and community value:  

  • Multigenerational and multidisciplinary engagement through the arts, education, religion, and recreation 
  • The dignity and contributions of all people 
  • Dialogue to achieve enhanced understanding that leads to positive action 
  • The serenity, tradition, safety, and ecology of Chautauqua’s historic grounds and surroundings 
  • A balance between Chautauqua’s heritage and the need to innovate 
Rossen Milanov conducting the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra

The Arts

Chautauqua as a community celebrates, encourages and studies the arts and treats them as integral to all of learning. With symphony, opera, theater, dance, visual arts and a renowned music school, Chautauqua produces an “eclectic mix” of programming that can be found nowhere else.

A chaplain giving a sermon during morning worship

Religion

At Chautauqua, religious faith is perceived, interpreted and experienced as central to the understanding and expression of our social and cultural values. Chautauqua is a community that is open to all with a wide variety of services of worship and programs that express the Institution’s Christian heritage and its interfaith commitment.

Alia Bilal giving an interfaith lecture

Education

Self-improvement through lifelong learning was at the heart of the impulse that motivated Americans and founded Chautauqua in 1874. That tradition continues today with a morning and afternoon lecture platform, continued education courses, the Chautauqua Literary & Scientific Circle book club, writers in residence, and a public library.

Men teeing off at the golf course

Recreation

From adult to youth programs, Chautauqua has embraced the recreative experience and a healthy lifestyle as essential to the Chautauqua experience. Recreational opportunities include sailing, boating, fishing and swimming on Chautauqua Lake as well as a 36-hole golf course, fast-dry and hard-surface tennis courts, playing fields, playgrounds and fitness centers.

An old black and white photo of people at the beach by the Miller Bell Tower

Our History

The Chautauqua Institution is a not-for-profit, 750-acre educational center beside Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York State, where approximately 7,500 persons are in residence on any day during a nine-week season, and a total of over 100,000 attend scheduled public events. Over 8,000 students enroll annually in the Chautauqua Summer Schools which offer courses in art, music, dance, theater, writing skills and a wide variety of special interests. 

The Institution, originally the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly, was founded in 1874 as an educational experiment in out-of-school, vacation learning. It was successful and broadened almost immediately beyond courses for Sunday school teachers to include academic subjects, music, art and physical education.

While founders Lewis Miller and John Heyl Vincent were Methodists, other Protestant denominations participated from the first year onward, and today Chautauqua continues to be ecumenical in spirit and practice. Chautauqua’s Department of Religion presents distinguished religious leaders of many faiths from this country and abroad, both as preachers and teachers.

The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC) was started in 1878 to provide those who could not afford the time or money to attend college the opportunity of acquiring the skills and essential knowledge of a College education. The four-year, correspondence course was one of the first attempts at distance learning. Besides broadening access to education, the CLSC program was intended to show people how best to use their leisure time and avoid the growing availability of idle pastimes, such as drinking, gambling, dancing and theater-going, that posed a threat both to good morals and to good health. To share the cost of purchasing the publications and to take encouragement from others in the course, students were encouraged to form local CLSC reading circles. Soon these were established throughout the country and, in time, around the world. Among those who benefited most from the CLSC program were women, teachers, and those living in remote rural areas. At the end of their four years of study, students were invited to come to Chautauqua to receive their certificates in a ceremony, which is still held today during the first week in August.

With the success of the CLSC, many new Chautauquas were created, known as “Daughter Chautauquas,” giving rise to what was called the “Chautauqua Movement.” Some years later, the talent agencies that provided speakers and entertainers for these platforms, put together shows of their own, which traveled to small towns across the United States and Canada. These were known as the “circuit chautauquas” or “tent chautauquas.”

By 1880 the Chautauqua platform had established itself as a national forum for open discussion of public issues, international relations, literature and science. Approximately 100 lecturers appear at Chautauqua during a season.

Music became increasingly important at Chautauqua, especially after the turn of the century. A symphony orchestra season became part of the regular program in 1920. The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1929, now performs thrice weekly with leading soloists in the 4,400-seat Amphitheater, Chautauqua’s program center. Popular entertainers perform other evenings. Guest dance companies, with representations of both contemporary and classical ballet, also appear in the Amphitheater, sometimes with guest artists, while the Chautauqua Theater Company presents its season in Bratton Theater. The Chautauqua Opera Company, also founded in 1929, performs in Norton Hall.

Chautauqua plays a unique educational role today, offering studies on a vacation level, a more serious level and a professional level. In addition, there are enhanced learning opportunities within Chautauqua’s other programming. Music, the arts, religion, recreation and the pursuit of knowledge are all available. Younger and older students often share learning experiences in an open, congenial atmosphere. Children and young people are also provided with their own special programs.

Chautauqua Institution is governed by a 24-member board of trustees, four of whom are elected by property owners. The board establishes the policies and direction of the Institution, electing the officers who are responsible for the operation of the Institution. Smith Memorial Library and the Chautauqua Institution Archives are open year-round. Between-season conferences are held at Bellinger Hall, the Athenaeum Hotel and other facilities on the grounds.

Archives

The Chautauqua Institution Archives is both an Institution repository and a collection repository. The parent, Chautauqua Institution, is supported by a records management program which allows the repository to receive records directly. The Archives also builds its holdings through the acquisition of papers, records and artifacts from sources that are not administratively affiliated with the Institution.

The mission of the Chautauqua Institution Archives is to identify, organize, preserve and protect the printed, microfilmed, taped, photographic and other records, and selected artifacts and museum pieces to add to the general and scholarly understanding of Chautauqua Institution and the Chautauqua Movement.

The Chautauqua Institution Archives staff assists the public throughout the year. Please stop in the research room of the Archives and explore Chautauqua’s history. Researchers and inquiries should be directed to the Oliver Archives Center. The hours during the summer season are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday. Off-season hours are by appointment. Archives staff can also be reached by phone at 716-357-6332, by fax at 716.357.9014, or via email to Archivist Jonathan Schmitz.

Finding Aid

Save Your Trip

Fill out the form below to save your trip. You will receive a link to your saved list via email.

  • Hidden
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Save Your Favorites

Fill out the form below to save your favorites. You will receive a link to your favorites list via email.

"*" indicates required fields

Name*
Hidden

Notice!

You have now entered the season. Some website content may differ depending on the current season we are in: Summer or Fall/Winter/Spring. You can toggle between the two season options at any time.

Okay

Subscribe to Chautauqua Institution’s email newsletter

  • About
  • Resources
  • Sustainability
  • Contact
  • Whistleblower Policy
  • Employment
  • Ethics Point
  • Labor Law Notices
  • Privacy Policy
  • ADA Compliance
Chautauqua Institution
P.O. Box 28
One Ames Ave.
Chautauqua, N.Y. 14722

1.800.836.ARTS
Washington, DC Office
1150 Connecticut, Avenue NW | Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036
202.480.2244
  • CHQ Assembly logo
  • Privacy Policy
  • ADA Compliance

© 2022 Chautauqua Institution. Chautauqua Institution is a not-for-profit organization, dependent upon your gifts to fulfill its mission. Gate tickets and other revenue cover only a portion of the cost of your Chautauqua experience.