December 2024

Paul Holdengräber is an interviewer, curator of public curiosity, and was the Founding Executive Director of Onassis Los Angeles (OLA). Prior he was Founder and Director of The New York Public Library’s LIVE from the NYPLcultural series where he interviewed and hosted over 600 events, including interviews with Patti Smith, Wes Anderson, Mike Tyson, Werner Herzog and many more. Before his tenure at the library, he was the Founder and Director of The Institute for Art & Cultures at the LACMA. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton University. In 2003, the French Government named him Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, and then promoted him in 2012 to the rank of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. In 2010, The President of Austria awarded him the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art.

Igor Levit, born in Nizhny Novgorod, moved to Germany with his family at the age of eight. He completed his piano studies at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. In the spring of 2019, he was appointed professor of piano at his alma mater. Since the spring of 2022, Igor Levit has been co-artistic director of the Heidelberger Frühling international music festival. The New York Times describes Igor Levit as one of the "most important artists of his generation," while the Süddeutsche Zeitung calls him a "stroke of luck" for today's concert scene. For his “house concerts” as a sign of hope and public spirit, as well as for his fight against anti-Semitism, Igor Levit was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in the fall of 2020. Together with Georg Diez, Igor Levit is an Honorary Fellow of the Thomas Mann House.

Ashley Blakeney is a Los-Angeles based arts healing facilitator and cultural leader with more than a decade of experience working in arts organizations and education. As the Executive Director at the Crenshaw Dairy Mart since 2021, Blakeney works to help communities of color imagine new systems for a more equitable world. Working at the intersection of abolition and healing, Blakeney’s professional and personal focus centers on cultivating safe spaces for creative expression.

Pauletta Pierce is the founder of the all WOC bike collective “Date with the Night,” and the creator of “Vibing with Cultural Leafs” - a 10-week curriculum to cultivate critical thinkers within the youth of Los Angeles through educational workshops and the arts. Her current cultural activities also include working as Director of Creative Development with East Wind Foundation, a youth organization in L.A. Chinatown.

Annett Scheffel is a culture writer, editor, speaker, and presenter based in Los Angeles and Berlin. She thinks, writes, and talks about music, film, feminism, and contemporary culture for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Spiegel Online, Zeit Online, Musikexpress, Dummy Magazin, and Deutschlandfunk — preferably at the intersection between identity, society, and politics.

Georg Diez is an author and journalist and currently a fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen and at ProjectTogether in Berlin, where he researches on democratic innovation. He previously worked as editor-in-chief of The New Institute, as a columnist for Spiegel Online, and for the feature sections of Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. For 2024, he is preparing an exhibition at Hamburg's Deichtorhallen entitled Survival in the 21st Century. Georg Diez lives in Berlin and Stockholm. Together with Igor Levit, Georg Diez is an Honorary Fellow of the Thomas Mann House.

Georg Diez is an author and journalist and currently a fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen and at ProjectTogether in Berlin, where he researches on democratic innovation. He previously worked as editor-in-chief of The New Institute, as a columnist for Spiegel Online, and for the feature sections of Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. For 2024, he is preparing an exhibition at Hamburg's Deichtorhallen entitled Survival in the 21st Century. Georg Diez lives in Berlin and Stockholm.

Lily Geismer is Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College. Geismer’s research and teaching focuses on 20th century political and urban history in the United States, especially liberalism and the Democratic Party. She is the author of Left Behind: The Democrats’ Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality (PublicAffairs, 2022), and Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party (Princeton University Press, 2015). She is also co-editor of Shaped by the State: Toward a New Political History of the Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press, 2019) and her work has appeared in the Journal of American History, The New York Times, among others.

Karin Pettersson is the Culture Editor of Aftonbladet, Scandinavia's biggest daily newspaper, and one of Sweden's most well-known journalists. She has a long background in journalism and politics, having founded leading news magazine Fokus, as well as worked at the Ministry of Finance as a political advisor. She is an economist by training, with a MSc from Stockholm School of Economics, and a 2017 Nieman Fellow from Harvard University.