THE FIVE BROWNS, NEIL SEDAKA AND MICHAEL BOLTON TO CLOSE THE 2007 SEASON AT CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION

CHAUTAUQUA , N.Y. — The 2007 season at Chautauqua Institution is drawing to an end. The final three Amphitheater Specials scheduled are The Five Browns (Aug. 23), Neil Sedaka (Aug. 24) and Michael Bolton (Aug. 25). Week nine, which runs from Aug. 19 to Aug. 26, will also include performances by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra, Chautauqua Opera, Time for Three, and silent film organist Dennis James and “The Lost World.” In addition, the arts and entertainment schedule includes a Family Entertainment Series production featuring the Chautauqua Regional Youth Ballet.

This week’s theme is: Healing and Healthy Aging: Nurture and Nature

AMPHITHEATER SPECIALS

The Five Browns

Thursday, Aug. 23 at 8:15 p.m.

One family, five pianos and 50 fingers add up to the biggest classical music sensation in years,” the New York Post wrote last year of The Five Browns, adding, “When these kids do Rachmaninoff, they’ll make you forget about Marshall amps.” A youthful, all-American quintet of brothers and sisters, each a virtuoso concert pianist, The Five Browns swept the classical world in 2005 with the release of their self-titled first recording for RCA Red Seal, which landed them at the top of the weekly Billboard charts and, at the end of the year, as one of the Top Classical Artists of 2005. With their next album No Boundaries now in stores, The Five Browns are already delivering on their dream of waking up classical music and introducing it to the widest, largest and most excited audience they can find.

(Single Ticket Price $33.00)

Neil Sedaka

Friday, Aug. 24 at 8:15 p.m.

For more than four decades, Neil Sedaka’s timeless standards have helped change the face of popular music. With countless hit singles, and platinum and gold records, he is recognized as one of rock and pop music’s legendary pioneers, and remains as vital a force today as he was when he first achieved his string of hits back in the late 1950s.

(Single Ticket Price $37.00)

Michael Bolton

Saturday, Aug. 25 at 8:15 p.m.

If you made a list of performers who have sold more than 53 million records, won multiple Grammy trophies for Best Male Vocalist and countless other honors, earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame and sold out arenas worldwide, Michael Bolton would be on that list. But if you tallied all the artists who've sung with Luciano Pavarotti and Ray Charles, written songs with Bob Dylan, penned hits for Barbra Streisand and KISS, played guitar with B.B. King and been sampled on a track by hip-hop superstar Kanye West (featuring megastar Jay-Z), Michael Bolton would be the only name on that list. The singer's musical diversification, however, has not dampened his commitment to making his voice heard in the social sphere .

(Single Ticket Price $37.00)

AMPHITHEATER PROGRAMS

Barbershop Harmony Parade

Sunday, Aug. 19 at 2:30 p.m.

They've been filling the Amphitheater for 60 years with quartet singing at its best - fun for the whole family.

(Sundays are free days at Chautauqua)

Time for Three

Monday, Aug. 20 at 8:15 p.m.

This trio of two violins and double bass are intent on exploring repertoire that stretches far beyond the limits of convention. Chautauquans will remember them from the Logan Chamber Music Series last summer. They dazzled the audience with their eclectic mix of bluegrass, Hungarian gypsy, jazz, country-western fiddling, classical, and improvisatory music. Appearances include the Philadelphia Orchestra, the 92nd Street Y in New York City and Paul Newman’s Hole in The Wall Gang Camp . Two of the members are alumni of the Chautauqua School of Music.

(Single Ticket Price $32.50)

Dennis James and “The Lost World”

Wednesday, Aug. 22 at 8:15 p.m.

Dennis James' Silent Film Concerts production company offers the rare opportunity to see classic silent films and to hear live musical scores presented as intended by the filmmakers. Silent Film Concerts has selected the films which provide the entire range of scenes and emotions that have given silent films a renewed popularity worldwide. The music scores have been preserved, or recreated, exactly as performed in the grand movie palaces of the 1920s with each featuring the dramatic tones of the magnificent pipe organs enhancing the unforgettable images on the silver screen.

If there was to be a single word to summarize the Silent Film Concerts approach to this nearly forgotten popular orchestral presentation art form it would be "authenticity." The company presents archival prints of each film (with many in early color processes) shown at the original exhibition projection speeds. The musical scores are either those few surviving created for the films' original release or new compilations faithful to historical performance practices of the period.

(Single Ticket Price $16.25)

U.S. Air Force Liberty Big Band

Sunday, Aug. 26 at 2:30 p.m.

The Chautauqua season will once again close with this wonderful band. Under the leadership of TSgt. Jon Linker, the band will bring great jazz, “America’s Music,” to the Amp.

(Sundays are free days at Chautauqua)

CHAUTAUQUA OPERA

Once Upon a Mattress

Sunday, Aug. 19 at 2 p.m. and Monday, Aug. 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Norton Memorial Hall

Princess Winnifred the Woebegone leaves her kingdom in the swamps and swims across a royal moat to meet Dauntless, the Prince of her dreams. But his domineering mother, Queen Aggravain, won’ let her son near the soggy princess (known to her friends as “red” unless she can pass a sensitivity test and prove she is a real princess. You've probably seen it in a school cafetorium or community theater barn. Chautauqua Opera is delighted to present one of MATTRESS' rare professional productions. With its sparkling score by Mary Rodgers, daughter of the famed Richard Rodgers, ONCE UPON A MATTRESS is a musical theater classic. This new production is a Chautauqua premiere, with staging by Jay Lesenger , choreography by Bill Fabris and at the podium is returning guest artist Braden Toan. This hilarious spoof of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Princess and the Pea” took the New York Theater world by storm in 1959 and made the very young Carol Burnett a star. As Princess Winnifred Sara Wordsworth makes her debut accompanied by fellow debuting artists Frank Vlastnik and Kevin Vortmann as The Minstrel and Sir Harry. Chautauqua favorites Carolann Page and Keith Jurosko return to Chautauqua Opera as Queen Aggravain and King Sextimus. The production team includes Christopher Ostrom as lighting designer, Helen E. Rodgers as costume designer and Steven Capone as set designer.

(Single Ticket Prices range from $20.00 to $55.00)

Tickets may be purchased at the Chautauqua Box Office in the Turner Community Center on Route 394. They may also be ordered at 716.357.6250 or on the Web at tickets.ciweb.org. For a complete Chautauqua Institution 2007 season calendar of events, call 1.800.836.ARTS or visit www.ciweb.org.

LOGAN CHAMBER MUSIC

The Western Wind

Monday, Aug. 20 at 4 p.m.

Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall

"O Beautiful” is a joyous and wonderfully diverse program of American music featuring works by some of the most important living American composers of our time. Also featured are arrangements of songs by Duke Ellington, Billy Joel and Rogers and Hart. Rounding out the program is a group of early American pieces by William Billings, Jeremiah Ingalls and Miss M. Durham, a repertoire for which The Western Wind was nominated for a Grammy in 1974. Western Wind in-house singer-composers baritone Elliot Z. Levine and soprano Gayla Morgan have also provided “O Beautiful” with brilliant settings and arrangements. In fact, the program takes it name from “America/Route 66”, created especially for this program by Gayla Morgan. It brilliantly incorporates "America the Beautiful" and "Route 66" with a witty reference or two to Bernstein’s “I Like to be in America.”

Because demand for chamber music tickets always exceeds availability, free tickets (two per person) are distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis, on the steps of the Colonnade Building at 8:30 a.m. each Monday. The line begins around 7:30 a.m. Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall opens at 3 p.m., and ticket holders are then admitted until 3:50 p.m. After that time, all empty seats become available on a first-come basis. No seats may be saved.

FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT SERIES

Chautauqua Regional Youth Ballet

Tuesday, Aug. 21 at 7 p.m.

Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall

The Pre-professional dancers from the Chautauqua Regional Youth Ballet, under the direction of Artistic Director, Monika Alch, will perform a program of excerpts from several well-loved ballets mixed in with some exciting contemporary pieces. CRYB is the area’s premier school for classical ballet training and is located in Jamestown. CRYB stages a full-length production of the Nutcracker each December, a Spring Gala performance and many smaller outreach performances throughout the year. Students come from throughout Chautauqua County as well as the Warren, Pa., area. CRYB is proud to be a part of the Chautauqua County community and its vibrant arts scene.

For family entertainment events being held in Smith-Wilkes or Lenna Hall, patrons coming from off the grounds may obtain a free pass at the Main Gate Welcome Center will call window. These passes are valid from one hour before showtime until one hour after the performance ends.

CHAUTAUQUA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Tuesday, Aug. 21 at 8:15 p.m.

Uriel Segal, conductor

Ralph Kirshbaum, cello

Short Ride in a Fast Machine.....................................................................John Adams 4’

Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85..........................................................Edward Elgar 30’

Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 “From the New World”.............Antonín Dvořák 40’

(Single Ticket Price $16.25)

CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE (CLSC) ROUNDTABLE/LECTURE

The Afterlife by Donald Antrim

Thursday, Aug. 23 at 4 p.m.

Hall of Philosophy

Acclaimed novelist Donald Antrim will present his newly published memoir The Afterlife. In pieces that appeared in The New Yorker and were anthologized in Best American Essays, Antrim explored his intense and complicated relationships with his mother, Louanne, an artist and teacher who was, at her worst, a ferociously destabilized and destabilizing alcoholic; his gentle grandfather, who lived in the mountains of North Carolina and who always hoped to save his daughter from herself; and his father, who married Louanne twice.

Described by The New York Times as “a fiercely intelligent writer,” Donald Antrim is the author of Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, The Hundred Brothers, and The Verificationist. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. He lives in New York City.

“A polished stylist, penetrating thinker, and deft storyteller, Antrim not only portrays his family with sensitivity, nerve, and wit but also writes incisively about the strange wearable art his fashion-expert mother created, considers the sanctuary of literature, and reflects on visions of the afterlife, thus infusing a haunting remembrance with arresting testimony to the power of art and the mystery of spirit,” wrote Donna Seaman of Booklist.

Founded in 1878, the CLSC is the oldest continuous book club in America and has remained a leader in adult education through quality programming. The CLSC has brought many Pulitzer Prize and National Book Club award winners to Chautauqua.

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** The Chautauqua Institution is a not-for-profit organization that serves as a community, a center, and a resource where the human spirit is renewed, minds stimulated, faith restored and the arts valued. It has performance venues, hotel, golf, tennis, and educational and recreational facilities. More information is available at www.ciweb.org.