The Concert Band & Soldiers’ Chorus are the oldest and largest of The U.S. Army Field Band’s performing components. Founded in 1946 and 1957 respectively, these two ensembles combine to present joint concerts on their national tours. They have performed in all 50 states and 30 foreign countries for audiences totaling hundreds of millions. The...
Chautauqua Writers’ Center Faculty Reading — Featuring Stephanie Ginese (Poetry) and Annmarie Kelly-Harbaugh (Prose) Stephanie Ginese is an author, instructor, and stand-up comedian from South Lorain, Ohio. Her literary work has been featured in Las Palabritas Journal at Harvard University, The Pinch Journal at the University of Memphis, Cleveland Review of Books, and elsewhere. Her...
Kriss Young Miller and her husband Gary manage the Quaker House. Kriss is a 2022 graduate of Earlham School of Religion with her Master of Arts in Peace and Social Transformation. Kriss is currently a student of Victoria Loorz in the Seminary of the Wild Earth at the Center for Wild Spirituality. She has completed...
Venerable Jissai Prince-Cherry began practicing Zen in 1994. Since then, she has maintained a daily personal practice and regularly participates in group sittings, intensive Zen meditation retreats, and periods of residential training including at a Zen monastery in Japan. She works closely with her teacher, Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, successor to Roshi Philip Kapleau, the founder...
Monte Thompson was a professional dancer, and also spent years as a restauranteur. His life was spent on his feet. Now retired, he is interested in continuing to be able to move easily and gracefully while using breathing and stretching techniques to help quiet his mind and prepare him to face each day with purpose...
The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde serves as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. In this role, she serves as spiritual leader for the congregations and Episcopal schools in the District of Columbia and four Maryland counties that comprise the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The first woman elected to this position, she also serves...
Two of America’s most respected television journalists help launch Chautauqua’s 2026 Summer Assembly and a week on “Icons and Instigators: Women Who Change the World” with a conversation based on their careers, and in particular new books by each that lift up and celebrate the strength, stories and bonds of women today as well as...
Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and commentator on religion and contemporary spirituality. Her latest book, A Beautiful Year, won the 2026 Wilbur Prize, her unprecedented third. Diana’s passion is sharing great ideas to change lives and the world—from informing the public about spiritual trends, challenging conventional narratives about...