An Evening with Kai Bird at Severance Music Center

Kai Bird, speaker 
Michael E. Hill, EdD, President of Chautauqua Institution, moderator

Jung-Min Amy Lee, violin
Dashon Burton, bass-baritone

SARASATE  Fantasy on The Magic Flute

JOHN ADAMS  "Batter my heart" from Doctor Atomic

Keynote speaker Kai Bird is a Pulitzer Prize—winning biographer, journalist, and co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, on which the blockbuster movie Oppenheimer was based. He is the executive director and distinguished lecturer of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. 
 

His most recent books include The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter and The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames, which was a New York Times best-seller. He chronicled his childhood in the Middle East in his memoir, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis. He is the author of biographies of John J. McCloy, McGeorge Bundy, and William Bundy. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2006 for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (co-authored with Martin J. Sherwin). His work includes critical writings on the Vietnam War, Hiroshima, nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the CIA. 
 

He won the National Books Critics Circle Award and the Duff Cooper Prize for History and is the recipient of numerous fellowships. He is an elected member of the prestigious Society of American Historians. 
 

Bird’s keynote presentation will include performances of works inspired by the festival’s theme by Cleveland Orchestra musicians and soloists. The event will be livestreamed on The Cleveland Orchestra’s digital home, adella.live and by Chautauqua Institution on CHQ Assembly at assembly.chq.org 

Ticket holders for Mozart's Magic Flute (May 16, 18, 24, & 26) and Mozart’s Gran Partita (May 23 & 25) qualify for and can claim complimentary tickets for the festival’s keynote event.

*A book signing with Bird will immediately follow the event.