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Michael McLaughlin is a pianist, accordionist, arranger, and composer for the Klezmer ensemble Shirim and the experimental Klezmer group Naftule's Dream. Performances on such stages as the Berlin Jazz Festival ('99), the Texaco Jazz Festival ('97, '98) as well as the Ashkenaz New Jewish Music Festival ('96, '98). Michael holds an MM in Composition from Tufts University ('99) where he studied with John McDonald, and a BM in composition from Berklee College of Music in 1993. He is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grand Award in composition for 2001.

Ellen Kushner is a novelist, performer and public radio personality who unites her talents as host of WGBH Radio's series, *Sound & Spirit*. A weekly series of hour-long radio programs produced by WGBH Radio Boston and distributed by Public Radio International, *Sound & Spirit* explores the human spirit through music and ideas. Bringing an intellectual openness, a keen ear, a lush voice and a genuine enthusiasm to each show, Kushner has deftly crafted *Sound & Spirit* into what Bill Moyers calls "the best program on public radio, bar none." *Sound & Spirit* weaves history, myth, and spiritual traditions together with music to take listeners on a journey around the world and through the ages. Ellen Kushner as a fiction editor for New York publishing houses and later as a freelancer. She relocated to Boston and joined WGBH Radio in 1987, creating an eclectic music mix for *NightAir*, keeping overnight audiences entertained with an unusual blend of classical and contemporary music. On Sunday afternoons she hosted *Caravan*, a mix of folk and world music. Ellen's national radio debut came when she was cast as the irreverent host of the *Nakamichi International Music Series* of classical concert music. Ellen then created three award-winning Jewish radio specials for PRI that quickly became listener favorites. In April 1996, Ellen and her team first launched *Sound & Spirit* on the national airwaves.

Mary Casey is a folk musician and recording artist who has been singing and playing Celtic and folk music for over 20 years, performing in coffee houses, folk festivals, and benefit concerts in North Carolina and across New England. She has recorded extensively with singer-songwriter Carolyn McDade, and most recently performed with Gail Rundlett and Dimitri Eleftherakis at folk venues and festivals in the Boston area.

Howard Dean served as governor of Vermont from 1991 until 2003, and was a Democratic candidate for president in 2004. Dean had previously worked as a physician; he earned an undergraduate degree from Yale in 1971 and a medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1978. He then moved to Vermont and opened a medical practice with his wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg.

Sidney Mintz is the William L. Straus Jr. Professor Emeritus and a research professor of anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University and the author of Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom.