Noor Wodjouatt Ensemble

Noor Wodjouatt and his ensemble perform Afghan-inspired music and dance for audiences around the world. The Kabul-born bandleader is the first Afghan to have performed at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and at the U.S. State Department. His five-piece ensemble blends traditional instrumental music with poetry and interpretive dance.

Ravi and Anoushka Shankar

Legendary sitarist/composer Ravi Shankar and his daughter, Anoushka, perform a program of improvisational world music.

Art Spiegelman

The first artist awarded a Pulitzer Prize for a graphic novel, Spiegelman is the creator of Maus and Maus II, which offer a portrayal of the Holocaust in the classic cartoon metaphor of cats and mice. He is noted for his use of shifting graphic styles and the controversial content and esthetic complexity of his work.

Billy Bang

Winner of the 2003 Indie Award for best mainstream jazz recording, Viet Nam: The Aftermath, Bang is one of a handful of musicians successfully adapting the unique timbre and range of the violin to the demands of improvisational jazz.

Ned Kahn

Widely known for his installations at the San Francisco Exploratorium and other venues, Kahn captures and transforms the natural environment into dynamic artistic experiences.

Wangari Maathai

Nobel Peace Prize-winner and founder of the grassroots Green Belt Movement, this noted environmentalist is internationally recognized for her visionary work in saving public forests.

Cindy Sheehan

John Lennon asked us to “Imagine all the people/Living life in peace,” a dream that is shared by this founding member of Gold Star Families for Peace and activist opposed to the war in Iraq.

Cynthia Enloe

Currently Research Professor in the Department of International Development, Community, and Environment at Clark University, Enloe is internationally known for her research and teaching on gender and militarization.

Chris Wedge

As an Oscar® winning director and co-founder of Blue Sky Studios, Chris Wedge is the driving force behind the company's high standard of story telling and character animation. Wedge directed Blue Sky’s animated feature films; Ice Age (2002), which was nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature Film, and Robots (2005). He was the Executive Producer of Ice Age The Meltdown, released in March 2006.

Joy Harjo

An internationally acclaimed poet, saxophonist, and recording artist of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation, Harjo has won numerous awards, including the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas.

Lisa Randall

Noted Harvard physicist and cosmologist, Randall’s books include Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions, in which she examines the possible existence of worlds that have been imagined in science fiction.