John Bayless is a pianist, composer, recording artist, and teacher. His recordings have topped the charts since the mid-1980s. John has toured extensively in the United States, Europe, and Asia, appearing with some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras at some of the world’s most famous venues. After a stroke paralyzed his right side in 2008, John taught himself to play with only his non-dominant left hand. Currently, he conducts Master Classes, and until 2023 was Artistic Director of The Waring International Piano competition in Palm Desert, because he “loves helping shape the careers of young and aspiring pianists.” John also tours his live, one-man show, One Hand One Heart – My Life and My Music, where he tells his life story while playing his life’s music. He is working on an autobiographical book sharing reflections on his life and career, and still loves concertizing around the world! Join John Bayless for his piano concert and Q&A following Left Alone Rhapsody.

Jeremy Borison is a Cleveland native based in Los Angeles whose filmmaking work explores the intersection of religion and sexuality and aims to create discourse through nuanced storytelling. His films have received grants from organizations including Micah Philanthropies, Aviv Foundation, and the Steven Spielberg supported Jewish Story Partners. Jeremy has been selected for various initiatives that explore art and religion, as an Asylum Arts Fellow, a writer for Imagination Productions, and a Filmmaker in Residence for the Jewish Film Institute. He recent debut feature film, Unspoken, follows a closeted teenager in a religious community. He is currently working on a documentary about the lawsuit between Yeshiva University and its Pride Alliance regarding the Orthodox institution’s rejection of an LGTBQ club on campus. Join Jeremy Borison for the Q&A following Unspoken.

Dr. Rachel Kranson is the Director of Jewish studies and Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the author of Ambivalent Embrace: Jewish Upward Mobility in Postwar America (2017, finalist for the first book award from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society) and the co-editor of A Jewish Feminine Mystique: Jewish Women in Postwar America (2010, finalist for a National Jewish Book Award in Women’s Studies). Kranson's article in Jewish Feminine Mystique focuses on the career of Catskills hotelwoman Jennie Grossinger, and her commentary on Catskills history was featured in the 2012 documentary Welcome to Kutcher’s: The Last Catskills Resort.  Join the Film Schmooze led by Dr. Kranson for the Q&A following The Catskills.

Heather Dune Macadam has spent over 20 years researching and interviewing families, witnesses, and survivors of the first official transport to Auschwitz. Her internationally acclaimed book 999 (published in 2020) has been translated into 19 languages and was a Pen American Award Finalist for Biography in 2021. Macadam’s first book, Rena’s Promise, co-written with Holocaust survivor #1716 Rena Kornreich Gelissen, is required reading in classes around the world. In 2011, Macadam founded Rena’s Promise Foundation in the hopes of helping create a more ecumenical world unhindered by prejudice, racism, or hatred. Macadam’s work discovering lost girls and young women of the Holocaust has been recognized by Yad Vashem in the UK, the National Museum of Jewish History in Slovakia, and the Memorial Museum of Auschwitz in Poland. A former professor, she has taught journalism, and creative nonfiction. This is her directorial debut. Join Heather for the Q&A following 999: The Forgotten Girls.

Stewart’s career as a director-writer-producer straddles the worlds of film and theater and encompasses techniques of both narrative and documentary storytelling. Stewart’s feature-length documentary Left Alone Rhapsody is currently winning awards and inspiring audiences on the film festival circuit, as are his feature-length screenplays BOTH, Sister Bert, Beyond Measure, and La Macha. Recently, he and John Bayless partnered with the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute to launch The John Bayless Fund for Brain Research and provide funding for cutting-edge research in neuroscience. The Fund will help people with stroke and other brain conditions overcome challenges, recover function, and regain their dreams. Join Stewart for the Q&A following Left Alone Rhapsody.

Dr. Jonathan Zisook serves on the faculty of Sociology and Jewish Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a sociologist of religion and a scholar of the Holocaust and its aftermath in East Central Europe. Jonathan is the editor of From Centre to Periphery and Beyond: The History and Memory of National Socialist Camps and Killing Sites (2024) and is currently completing a monograph on the politics of Holocaust memory in contemporary Poland. Jonathan’s research has been supported by the Polish-U.S. Fulbright Commission, the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. He received a PhD in Sociology from the City University of New York and an MA in Modern Jewish History from Yeshiva University. Join the Film Schmooze led by Dr. Zisook following The Boy in the Woods.