LOS ANGELES (November 7, 2006) - The Music Center Speaker Series returns to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with a roster of renowned experts in literature, politics, media and foreign affairs. The lectures are scheduled between January and June 2007 (complete schedule follows).

The Music Center Speaker Series presents a third year of eclectic and thought-provoking evenings in downtown Los Angeles. Sharing insights informed by decades of experience at the highest levels of their professions, speakers in the series this year represent a wide-range of opinion and political orientation. The series is a collaboration of the Music Center and SR Productions. City National Bank is the presenting sponsor.

Tickets for the Music Center Speaker Series are currently available by subscription only. Packages begin at $150 for 5 speakers and can be purchased by calling 213-972-0700. For more information visit musiccenter.org. Series A includes the Honorable Vicente Fox, Dr. Maya Angelou, the Honorable George H.W. Bush, Fareed Zakaria and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Series B includes Jim Lehrer, the Honorable Madeleine Albright, George Will, Joan Didion and Bob Woodward. Subscribers have the option of purchasing additional tickets to any of the speaking engagements.

The Music Center of Los Angeles County is one of the three largest performing arts centers in the nation and one of Southern California's premier cultural destinations. Centrally located in downtown Los Angeles along Grand Avenue, the Music Center is home to four internationally acclaimed Resident Companies: The Los Angeles Philharmonic, Center Theater Group, LA Opera and the Los Angeles Master Chorale and is comprised of four venues - Walt Disney Concert Hall, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater and Mark Taper Forum - as well as outdoor theaters, plazas, and gardens. Additionally, the Music Center offers the largest presentation of dance in Los Angeles, a tour program, participatory arts activities, exciting programming for children and families throughout the year and its school education programs are nationally recognized.

SR Productions was founded by Alan Rothenberg & Dan Savage; two of the most experienced programmers in America. The partners have each produced events for over three decades. Alan Rothenberg, one of the most respected individuals in the sports and legal industries, founded Major League Soccer in the United States, produced highly successful World Cup events in both 1994 and 1999. Dan Savage, one of America's leading "Speaker Impresario's," has presented and booked thousands of prominent speakers. He created Gene Roddenberry's "World of Star Trek" Arena Tours and "Alex Haley in America" Tours. They both have produced innumerable events for both public and private venues.

Dr. Maya Angelou
Friday, February 23, 2007, 8:00 p.m.
This Renaissance woman has been hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary literature. Angelou is a poet, historian, best selling author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director. Her I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings was a National Book Award nominee, and her volume of poetry Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die was a Pulitzer Prize nominee. Angelou read her poem On the Pulse of Morning for Bill Clinton's 1993 Presidential inauguration at his request. Her adaptation of Sophocles's Ajax premiered at the Mark Taper Forum.

Angelou holds a lifetime chair as the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University. She has received numerous honors including the Yale University's Chubb Fellowship, and was named a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar. In 2005, Angelou, with 25 other African-American women, was honored as an inspiration to Oprah Winfrey at her Legends Ball.

The Honorable George H.W. Bush, 41st President of the United States
Monday, March 12, 2007, 8:00 p.m.
George Bush served as U.S. President from 1989 to 1993. During his term the Cold War ended, a democratic Russia replaced the Soviet Union, the Berlin Wall fell, and Eastern Europe almost completely transformed. President Bush put together an unprecedented coalition of 32 nations to liberate Kuwait, paving the way for Israel and her Arab neighbors to renew the quest for peace in the Middle East.

Only the second President to serve a full term without party control in either chamber of Congress, President Bush nevertheless successfully brokered a number of ground-breaking legislative and policy actions, among them the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Clean Air Act, and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). President Bush is the author of two books - A World Transformed, co-written with General Brent Scowcroft and All The Best, a collection of letters.

Fareed Zakaria
Monday, May 14, 2007, 8:00 p.m.
The editor of Newsweek International, PBS host of Foreign Exchange and political analyst for ABC News, Fareed Zakaria is widely respected for his ability to spot economic and political trends around the world. As editor of Newsweek International Zakaria oversees eight editions of Newsweek throughout Asia, Latin America, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. His column appears in Newsweek (USA), Newsweek International, and often, The Washington Post. He authored the international bestseller, The Future of Freedom.

Trained as an academic at Yale and Harvard, Zakaria at age 28 became the youngest managing editor of Foreign Affairs, the leading journal of international politics and economics. He has received honors for his work including the Overseas Press Club Award, the National Press Clubs' Edwin Hood Award and the Deadline Club Award for best columnist.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Thursday, June 7, 2007, 8:00 p.m.
Despite growing up the son of an architect and a painter, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s career as a writer surfaced after many years' work outside of the arts: as a chemistry student at Cornell University, as a soldier and prisoner of war during World War II, as a student of anthropology, as a reporter. After three years at General Electric, he began to sell short stories to magazines and moved to Cape Cod where he has since established himself as one of this country's pre-eminent writers.

His academic posts included the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, Harvard University and City College of New York. The author of the best-selling novels Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions, short stories, nonfiction and criticism, Vonnegut's latest collection of works is A Man without a Country. He is a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and recipient of its 1970 literary award.

Series B
Jim Lehrer
Thursday, February 15, 2007, 8:00 p.m.
Journalist Jim Lehrer joined PBS in 1972, the next year he teamed with Robert MacNeil to cover the Watergate hearings. The Mac Neil/Lehrer Report launched two years later and in 1983 The MacNeil /Lehrer NewsHour, the first 60-minute evening news program aired. In 1995, MacNeil retired and the program was renamed the The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, where he serves as executive editor and anchor. Lehrer holds many journalistic honors including the 1999 National Humanities Medal. He has authored fifteen novels, two memoirs and three plays.

The Honorable Madeleine Albright
Tuesday, March 13, 2007, 8:00 p.m.
Madeleine Albright served as the 64th United States Secretary of State, the first woman to hold the office. Prior to her appointment, she served as the ambassador to the United Nations. She is a co-founder the Center for National Policy and served as president of the organization. In 1982, Albright began her tenure at Georgetown University, where she continues to teach today. She is the author of a best-selling memoir Madame Secretary, and The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God and World Affairs.

George Will
Monday, April 30, 2007, 8:00 p.m.
Pulitzer Prize-wining columnist and Newsweek essayist, George Will is the country's foremost conservative voice. His twice weekly syndicated column for The Washington Post reaches nearly 500 newspapers in the U.S. and Europe. He also serves as a political analyst on ABC's This Week. He is a prolific author with books ranging from The Woven Figure: Conservatism and America's Fabric to Bunts to his latest, With a Happy Eye, but...: America and the World, 1997-2002.

Joan Didion
Monday, May 7, 2007, 8:00 p.m.
In 2005, Joan Didion won the National Book Award for The Year of Magical Thinking, which she is currently adapting for Broadway. A novelist, essayist and non-fiction writer she has authored 13 books, and she and her late husband John Gregory Dunne co-authored a number of noted screenplays. She is a contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. Throughout her career she has received many awards, and in 2005 received the Gold Medal for Belles Letters from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is the highest honor the Academy awards to a writer and is given once every six years.

Bob Woodward
Friday, June 8, 2007, 8:00 p.m.
Bob Woodward is an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked since 1971. He has won nearly every American journalism award. The Pulitzer Prize was given to the Post in 1973 for the reporting of Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the Watergate scandal. In addition, Woodward was the lead reporter for the Post's articles on the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks that won the National Affairs Pulitzer Prize in 2002.

Woodward has co-authored or authored twelve nonfiction books; ten have been number one national bestsellers, more than any other contemporary American writer, and the other two were on the national bestseller list for months. Woodward's latest book State of Denial chronicles the inner debates in the White House after the September 11th attacks, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the subsequent decision to invade Iraq.