Summary: Thomas Jefferson, portrayed by award-winning humanities scholar Clay Jenkinson, joins the Saint Michael Trio for conversation and a performance of chamber music that was popular during Jefferson's lifetime. The performance will feature composers Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, who were Jefferson’s contemporaries. He would have heard them during his sojourn in Paris as U.S. minister to France. A connoisseur of the finer things of life and an accomplished violinist himself, Jefferson will speak about music and the arts more generally. Jenkinson has dedicated the better part of his life to researching the historical characters he portrays and to bringing back and defining the "living theatre" of Chautauqua. He is one of the nation’s leading interpreters of Thomas Jefferson. Jenkinson hosts the weekly Thomas Jefferson Hour. He is president of Dakota Sky Education, Inc., the founder and chief consultant for the Theodore Roosevelt Center through Dickinson State University, and scholar of humanities at the University of Mary in Bismarck.
