DINNER SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Ken Burns | Director and Producer, COUNTRY MUSIC
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for over forty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made. A December 2002 poll conducted by Real Screen Magazine listed The Civil War as second only to Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North as the “most influential documentary of all time,” and named Ken Burns and Robert Flaherty as the “most influential documentary makers” of all time. In March 2009, David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun said, “… Burns is not only the greatest documentarian of the day, but also the most influential filmmaker period. That includes feature filmmakers like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. I say that because Burns not only turned millions of persons onto history with his films, he showed us a new way of looking at our collective past and ourselves.” The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of his films, “More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source.” And Wynton Marsalis has called Ken “a master of timing, and of knowing the sweet spot of a story, of how to ask questions to get to the basic human feeling and to draw out the true spirit of a given subject.” Ken’s films have won fifteen Emmy Awards and two Oscar nominations, and in September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Ken has been the recipient of thirty honorary degrees and has delivered many treasured commencement addresses. He is a sought-after public speaker, appearing at colleges, civic organizations and business groups throughout the country.

Dayton Duncan | Writer and Producer, COUNTRY MUSIC
An award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker, Duncan has worked with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns on a variety of projects. As co-writer and consulting producer, THE WEST won the Erik Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians. Duncan was the writer and producer of LEWIS & CLARK: THE JOURNEY OF THE CORPS OF DISCOVERY, a four-hour documentary, which attained the second-highest ratings (following THE CIVIL WAR) in the history of PBS and won a Western Heritage award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and a CINE Golden Eagle, as well as many other honors. He was the co-writer and producer of MARK TWAIN, a four-hour film biography of the great American humorist. HORATIO’S DRIVE, about the first transcontinental automobile trip, which he wrote and produced, won a Christopher Award. THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA’S BEST IDEA, which he wrote and produced, won two Emmy awards – for outstanding nonfiction series and outstanding writing for nonfiction programming. His most recent film with Burns was THE DUST BOWL, a two-part series about the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history. It won a CINE Golden Eagle and a Western Heritage award; his script won a Spur Award and was nominated for an Emmy. Duncan has also served as a consultant or consulting producing on all of Burns’s other documentaries, beginning with THE CIVIL WAR and including BASEBALL, JAZZ, and THE WAR, among others. Dayton Duncan is the author of twelve books, including The West: An Illustrated History for Children, which was selected by The New Yorker magazine for its “short list” of the 16 best children’s books of 1996 and won a Western Heritage award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Julie Dunfey | Producer, COUNTRY MUSIC
Julie Dunfey began her association with Ken Burns and Florentine Films in 1986 as a co-producer of The Civil War and Thomas Hart Benton. Thomas Hart Benton, which was broadcast in 1989, received a Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival. The Civil War, for which Julie received an Emmy and a Christopher Award, premiered in 1990 and became the most highly rated series in PBS history. She was a consultant on Mark Twain; Jazz; Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony; Horatio’s Drive; and The War, all Florentine Films productions. In 2006 Julie was as a co-producer for TheNational Parks: America’s Best Idea, which was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Nonfiction Series. Her most recent film with Ken Burns, The Dust Bowl, premiered on national PBS in November 2012 and was the most highly rated show on PBS in five years, attracting over 17 million viewers. It won a CINE Golden Eagle and a Western Heritage Award. With Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, Julie was nominated in 2013 by the Producers Guild for Outstanding Producer of Long Form-Television. She is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College, and received her M.A. in history from Stanford University.

Kathy Mattea | Musician
Hailed by The Washington Post as “one of Nashville's finest song interpreters,” Kathy Mattea has enjoyed the kind of success many artists only dream of: two GRAMMY wins, four CMA Awards, four #1 country singles, and five gold albums (plus a platinum collection of her greatest hits). The dream almost ended, though, when Mattea entered her 50s and began to find her voice changing. What followed was a three-year journey through life challenges and vocal glitches that she describes as her “dark night of the soul,” a trying time of personal anguish and professional uncertainty that threatened to silence her permanently. Instead, Mattea dug in with a vocal coach, re-committed to her music, and emerged with the most poignant album of her career, “Pretty Bird.” Working with her old friend, music roots wizard Tim O’Brien, producing, “Pretty Bird” is a chronicle of her journey, song by song, back to singing for the sheer joy of it. Exquisitely arranged and delivered with the kind of subtlety and nuance that can only come from a lifetime of heartbreak and triumph, ‘Pretty Bird’ is a title Kathy Mattea inhabits quite literally, and it’s a welcome reintroduction to one of country and Americana music’s most enduring and beloved figures.

DINNER PERFORMANCE BIOGRAPHIES

Fred Carpenter | Musician
Fred Carpenter started in music with 10 years of classical violin, switched to fiddling at age 17, and recorded his 1st solo fiddle album w/ Mark O’Connor at age 20. In 1982, he joined the Tony Rice Unit, touring for several years and recording 2 albums. Fred has called Nashville home for 30 years, and during that time has toured with several artists including Emmylou Harris, George Strait, Ronnie Milsap, Suzy Bogguss, Paul Overstreet, and of course, Kathy Mattea! In 1988, Fred also started a small Violin Shop in Nashville, offering instrument repair, restoration, sales, rentals, and in general, all things fiddle!! Now celebrating 30 years, The Violin Shop has become the place to go for fiddlers everywhere. Fred has toured with Kathy whenever possible over the last 12 years in several configurations, including the 7-piece band, the Christmas tour, concerts w/ Symphony Orchestras, and as a quartet…or 2…. or 3!



Bill Cooley | Musician
“In what is surely one of the longest and musically richest partnerships in Nashville, Bill Cooley has been playing guitar in Kathy Mattea’s band for 20 years,” wrote dean of Nashville’s music critics, Robert K. Oermann seven years ago. As Kathy and Bill start their 27th year together, they are out on the road with the Acoustic Living Room Tour. Just the two of them onstage, playing new songs they’ve worked up at their regular Thursday afternoon rehearsals, as well as her classic hits and requests. Bill has toured and recorded with Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire, Alan Jackson and Hal Ketchum, in addition to Kathy. As a songwriter, he's had cuts by Kathy and Reba, among others. As an arranger, Bill has played an important role on Kathy's albums, including the Grammy-nominated “Coal”, and 2013’s "Calling Me Home," where Kathy explored her Appalachian heritage.

Eric Frey | Musician
Hailing from Clay, AL, Eric’s style was forged in the campfires of countless Bluegrass festivals and jams that his Dad (also a bass player) used to drag him to. On his 22^nd birthday, he moved to Louisiana to join the Red Stick Ramblers, and ventured the globe playing their brand of Cajun Gypsy Swing. Since then he has been on over 50 recordings, including 6 Grammy nominated albums, notably Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy’s 2006 record Adieu False Heart, and The Band Courtbouillon’s self-titled recording which won the Best Regional Roots category in 2012. He has a nomination for himself for his work on The Revelers’ album Get Ready. His songs have been used in Television and Film, including HBO’s Treme, which he also appeared as an actor in 3 seasons. You can find him these days in Nashville playing gigs in any style imaginable, remodeling houses, and playing old-time banjo with his fiddling wife, Clelia.



SESSION SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Christiane Amanpour | Host, Amanpour and Company
Christiane Amanpour is chief international anchor of CNN's award-winning, flagship global affairs program “Amanpour,” which also airs on PBS in the United States. She is based in the network's London bureau. Amanpour has earned every major television journalism award including 11 News and Documentary Emmy Awards, four Peabody Awards, two George Polk Awards, three duPont-Columbia Awards and the Courage in Journalism Award. She has received nine honorary degrees, has been named a CBE and was this year inducted into the Cable Hall of Fame. She is an honorary citizen of Sarajevo and a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Freedom of the Press and the Safety of Journalists. Amanpour graduated summa cum laude from the University of Rhode Island with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.


Susan Bellows | Senior Producer, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, WGBH
Susan Bellows is an award-winning producer and writer with more than 20 years of experience producing national programs for public television. Bellows most recently served as the writer, director and producer for The Bombing of Wall Street, which premiered on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE in February 2018. She was also the producer and director on the four-hour JFK, which premiered in 2013. Since joining the series in 2003, she has provided editorial support and guidance to its broadcast and new media work. Previously, Bellows served as senior producer for the Peabody and Emmy-Award winning series Africans in America. Her other producing credits include films for The Great Depression, for which she received an Emmy nomination, and America’s War On Poverty, both productions of Blackside, Inc. Bellows also co-produced New Worlds, New Forms for the WNET-produced series Dancing, an eight-hour landmark series on dance forms around the world.


Chris Eliopoulos | Co-Creator, XAVIER RIDDLE AND THE SECRET MUSEUM
Chris Eliopoulos began his career working for Marvel Comics and has worked on literally thousands of comics. He’s written or illustrated comics including Cow Boy, Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius and Pet Avengers. He’s the author/illustrator of a couple of graphic novels, Cosmic Commandos and Monster Mayhem and illustrates the Ordinary People Change the World series which is being adapted to a PBS animated show for children titled Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum




Joe Elmore | Host | WNPT’s Tennessee Crossroads
Joe Elmore is a TV personality, producer and writer who enjoys weekly connections with audiences in his home state of Tennessee. He’s served as host and story producer at “Tennessee Crossroads” since its inception at WNPT, Nashville, in 1987. “Crossroads” – now aired on stations throughout Tennessee and the Southeast – reigns as one of the highest-rated PBS-based shows in the nation. It’s a magazine-style, travel show that celebrates the interesting people and places mostly found on the back roads of the Volunteer state. Joe received a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism at Arkansas State University and a Master of Arts degree in broadcasting and film at the University of Memphis. After graduating, he worked as the school’s media relation’s director, while also teaching as an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Journalism. The lure of a broadcast journalism career led Joe to a five-year run at WHBQ-TV news in Memphis. For three years Joe was co-host of that station’s PM Magazine show, before moving to Nashville in 1985. In Music City, Joe worked on shows for the former Nashville Network as well as countless independent projects for television, radio and film. Of course, he considers “Tennessee Crossroads” the fulfillment of all his childhood and adulthood TV dreams.

Dorothea Gillim | Executive Producer, Molly of Denali, WGBH
Dorothea Gillim served as Executive Producer at WGBH for the Emmy award-winning PBS series Curious George and now oversees Molly of Denali and Pinkalicious & Peterrific. She began her television career as a writer/audio editor on the Peabody Award-winning series Dr. Katz for Comedy Central. Dorothea went on to produce Science Court for ABC Saturday Morning and TimeWarp Trio for Discovery Kids before creating her first animated comedy, Hey Monie, for Oxygen. In 2006 she created WordGirl for PBS KIDS, winner of four Emmys and a Television Critics Association Award.




Princess Johnson | Creative Producer, Molly of Denali, WGBH
Princess Daazhraii Johnson is Neets’aii Gwich’in and her family is from Arctic Village, Alaska. Princess is a Sundance Fellow for the Filmmakers, Producers and Screenwriters Lab, and an Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow with the PEN Center. She has been a member of the SAG-AFTRA Native American Committee since 2007 and also serves on the Board of Dancing with the Spirit, a program that promotes spiritual wellness through music. Her screen credits include Jericho (CBS), Big Miracle, and Uncross the Stars. Princess received a B.A. in International Relations from The George Washington University and a Masters in Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage with a focus on Environmental and Science Education. In 2015 she was appointed by President Obama to serve on the Board of Trustees for the Institute of American Indian Arts. She lives in Fairbanks with her husband, James, and her three boys and two dogs.

Fred Kaufman | Executive Producer | NATURE
Fred Kaufman is one of the world’s leading executives in the natural history genre. As the executive producer of the acclaimed PBS Nature series, Kaufman has won seven Emmys and two Peabody Awards. He has been with Nature since its beginning in 1982 and has overseen it since 1991. During his tenure, Nature has been honored with hundreds of industry awards. In 2012, Kaufman was named the recipient of the International Wildlife Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Media. In 2010, he accepted the Outstanding Achievement Award from the prestigious Wildscreen Film Festival in Bristol, England. It was the first time in the 20-year history of the festival that the award was presented to an American wildlife series. In 2009, Kaufman executive produced The Legend of Pale Male, an award-winning feature documentary that chronicled the legendary hawk that nested on a Fifth Avenue building in New York City. In 2002, he created and executive produced an urban wildlife series for kids called Wild TV. And in 1994, he developed and executive produced a series of wildlife specials featuring celebrities called In the Wild. Memorable shows from the series included Dolphins with Robin Williams, Orangutan with Julia Roberts and Lions with Anthony Hopkins. Kaufman is a member of the Director’s Guild of America and the Writer’s Guild of America. He appears regularly on public television pledge drives as a spokesman for quality natural history television.

Paula Kerger | President & CEO | PBS
Paula A. Kerger is president and chief executive officer of PBS, the nation’s largest non-commercial media organization with nearly 350 member stations throughout the country. Having joined PBS in March 2006, Kerger is the longest-serving president and CEO in PBS history. Under Kerger’s leadership, PBS has grown its audiences across genres and platforms. PBS has moved from the 15th most-watched network in America to number six in the past decade. Over the course of a year, eighty percent of all U.S. television households watch PBS, and each month Americans view an average of 260 million videos across PBS’ web, mobile and connected device platforms. Since Kerger’s arrival, PBS has consistently presented high-quality, groundbreaking content that delivers on the founding mission of public television — to educate, inspire and entertain the American people. Among her accomplishments are the pop culture phenomenon “Downton Abbey” on MASTERPIECE, Ken Burns’s and Lynn Novick’s critically acclaimed THE VIETNAM WAR, the documentary “Hamilton’s America” about the Broadway smash hit musical, “Freedom Riders” on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, and award-winning children’s programs such as DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD. In the past year, PBS and its producing partners have been recognized with prestigious honors, including four Peabody Awards, two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, seven Daytime Emmy Awards and 12 News & Documentary Emmy Awards — more than any other organization.

Lesli Rotenberg | Senior Vice President & General Manager, Children’s Media & Education, PBS
As Senior Vice President and General Manager, Children’s Media and Education at PBS, Lesli Rotenberg is responsible for the strategic direction of an innovative, dynamic media service that meets the needs of America’s children, parents and teachers, helping to prepare the next generation for success in school and in life. Rotenberg leads a cross-disciplinary team charged with content production, digital development, multi-platform asset distribution, education resources, educational product creation, marketing and communications for PBS KIDS, the #1 children's media brand.
Under Rotenberg’s leadership, PBS has transformed from a broadcast organization to a multi-platform leader that opens worlds of possibilities for children through educational television, apps, the web, streaming video and an award-winning line of toys. PBS KIDS has extended its reach through the launch of the new 24/7 services in January of 2017. Provided by local stations, the free services include a new TV channel and live stream on digital platforms. Rotenberg also oversees PBS Education, which develops education services for PBS member stations, teachers and students. She leads the team responsible for PBS’ strategic partnerships, digital media production, professional development and other emerging products and services that support educators from preschool through college levels.

Angela C. Santomero | Co-creator, Super Why, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood
Angela C. Santomero is an original Co-Creator, Executive Producer and Head Writer for the breakthrough and award winning Blue’s Clues. Angela is also the Creator, Executive Producer and Head Writer for the smash hit Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood (PBS), as well as Super Why! (PBS), Creative Galaxy (Amazon Studios), Wishenpoof! (Amazon Studios), and Charlie’s Colorforms City (Netflix). Malcolm Gladwell referred to Blue’s Clues as "One of the stickiest TV shows EVER made" in The Tipping Point. Angela is the Chief Creative Officer of 9 Story Media Group. As CCO, Santomero leads the creative content strategy across all of 9 Story, with facilities in Toronto, New York, Dublin and Manchester. The appointment follows 9 Story’s recent acquisition of Out of the Blue Enterprises, which was co-founded by Santomero. Described by Joanne Rogers as “a modern day Fred Rogers,” and by Fatherly.com as “the driving force behind the best educational programming for children,” Angela’s work has won the prestigious Peabody award, two TCA awards, 30+ Emmy nominations, and numerous Parents Choice Gold and Silver Awards. Angela's legacy is forever changing the way in which preschoolers watch television by presenting them with unique, challenging programs that enable them to learn through play, humor, and respect - - changing the world one preschooler at a time!

Hari Sreenivasan | Host | PBS NewsHour Weekend
Hari Sreenivasan is the anchor of PBS NewsHour Weekend and a contributor for Amanpour and Company. Sreenivasan is also a senior correspondent for the nightly program PBS NewsHour, which he joined in 2009. Prior to joining NewsHour, he was at CBS News, reporting for the CBS Evening News, The Early Show and CBS Sunday Morning. Before that, he served as an anchor and correspondent for ABC News, working extensively on the network's 24-hour digital service ABC News Now. Sreenivasan also reported for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Nightline with Ted Koppel, and anchored the overnight program World News Now.
Previously, Sreenivasan ran his own production company and freelanced as a reporter for KTVU-TV in Oakland, California. He served as an anchor and senior correspondent for CNET Broadcast in San Francisco and was a reporter for WNCN-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina and KAPP-TV in Yakima, Washington. Sreenivasan received an Emmy award for a story on gold mining by children in the Philippines. He has previous nominations for work from PBS NewsHour, Frontline and during his time at CBS. Sreenivasan is a member of both the South Asian Journalists Association and the Asian American Journalists Association and a 2003 graduate of the AAJA Executive Leadership Program.