Originally broadcast at 10:45 a.m. ET Wednesday, August 24, 2022.

One of the lead singers and founding members of the folk-rock band The Avett Brothers, Scott Avett is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and accomplished artist and printmaker who joins the Chautauqua Lecture Series for a conversation that will focus on music as a channel for emotion and a conductor of contemplation in our natural desire for oneness. This summer will mark Avett’s third appearance at Chautauqua, having performed here previously with The Avett Brothers in 2016 and 2018; in 2020, the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson spoke with the band’s upright bass player Bob Crawford as part of CHQ Assembly’s Interfaith Lecture Series and for Crawford’s podcast “The Road to Now.” The summer of 2022 will also see The Avett Brothers take the Amphitheater stage again the same day as Scott Avett’s morning conversation. The Avett Brothers made mainstream waves in 2009 with their major label debut, I and Love and You, landing at No. 16 on the Billboard Top 200 and garnering critical acclaim. Since that time, their album True Sadness (2016) has achieved The Avett Brothers’ highest career debut to date, hitting No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Top Rock Albums Chart, No. 1 on the Digital Albums Chart, No. 3 on Billboard Top 200, and scoring two Grammy nominations. All told, with 10 studio albums, The Avett Brothers’ work has garnered them three Grammy Award nominations, and eight nominations and four Americana Music Honors and Awards nominations from the Americana Music Association. In 2016, the band was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. In 2017, the band released their critically acclaimed documentary, May It Last: A Portrait of The Avett Brothers, which was directed by Judd Apatow. The film was released theatrically and on HBO to rave reviews, was shown at Chautauqua in 2018, and is now available on DVD/Blu-Ray/VOD. A stage musical based on the band’s music, titled Swept Away, is set to debut in 2022 at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. As a visual artist, Avett’s painting and printmaking focuses on figurative work about spirituality and family/human relationships. He’s represented by SOCO Gallery, a contemporary art space and bookshop based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.