2025 Festival of Faiths
“Sacred Belonging”
The 2025 Festival of Faiths, Sacred Belonging, celebrated the interconnectedness of all people and the world we share. Together, we explored ways to cultivate communities of care, foster solidarity through empathy, and resist cultural systems that sow discord. We discovered a joy that honors our differences as we seek true belonging.
SPEAKERS & ARTISTS
Sara Callaway believes music belongs to everyone. As executive director of the Louisville Academy of Music, she has launched a need-based scholarship program that has awarded over 100 students financial aid, reached thousands of people through new community programs, and led renovations to LAM’s historic main campus. Sara holds bachelor’s and master’s Degrees in Violin Performance from the University of North Carolina and attended programs at the Berlin University of the Arts, the International Music Academy at Pilsen, the Heifetz Institute, and Appalshop.
A constant innovator and creator, Sara co-curated SONIC-Bernheim, a performance series that explores the relationships between sound, music and nature, and has recorded with musicians such as Will Oldham, Stephen Vitiello, Tim Barnes and the NouLou Chamber Players. She is inspired by the young people in her life — the students at LAM and her 4- and 5-year-old sons who remind her “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” (Annie Dillard)
Rabbi Matt moved from Rochester, New York, to Louisville in 2014 after completing undergraduate studies in religious studies. He completed a Master of Divinity at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary while working at The Temple as Senior Rabbinic Assistant. During his time at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Matt served as solo rabbi for a wide array of synagogues, as well as Senior Rabbinic Fellow for Hillel at Ohio University. During his summers at HUC and beyond, he served as a Chaplain Candidate for the U.S. Air Force. Over the past year, Matt served as rabbi for Congregation Beth Shalom in Columbia, Missouri, where he led services in both the Reform and Conservative traditions to meet the needs of the diverse Jewish community he served.
Rabbi Matt has a passion for making experiences and education accessible and meaningful to all. He loves the challenge of relating anything and everything to the Jewish experience and cultivating deep joy in Jewish life. He and his wife run a rescue for dogs with challenging medical conditions, called Luna Bell’s Moonbows.
Adam Kane began exploring Buddhism after graduating from Duke University with a degree in neuroscience in 2000. He first studied the Buddha-Dharma in the Theravada lineage, then took the Anagarika ordination in the Thai Forest tradition of Ajahn Chah in 2003.
After two years in a forest monastery, he began practicing Tibetan Buddhism under his teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche. He moved to Nepal in 2008 to study Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy, and stayed there for seven years, gaining a master of arts degree in Buddhist Studies from Rangjung Yeshe Institute. Adam also helps mentor some of Khyentse Vision Project’s translator trainees. He has been interpreting, translating, writing and developing curriculum for his root lamas and various other lamas and khenpos since 2013. He is based in Crestone, Colorado, and enjoys walking in the mountains in his spare time.
Justin Klassen is professor of Theology & Religious Studies at Bellarmine University, where he teaches philosophical theology and religious ethics. His scholarship focuses on religion and ecology, and he is especially interested in the spiritual significance of the natural world among religiously unaffiliated people. He enjoys hiking, camping, and taking pictures of birds in the woods of Kentucky.
Dr. Michael Brandon McCormack is associate professor of Pan-African Studies and Comparative Humanities and former director of the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research at the University of Louisville. He earned his Ph.D. in religion from Vanderbilt University. His research explores intersections between Black religion, popular culture, the arts and activism. He teaches courses in African American religion, religions of the African diaspora, and religion and hip-hop culture. He is an inaugural Ascending Stars Fellow at UofL and a research fellow at the University of Memphis. He is also a member of the Black Interfaith Project, a network of academics, artists, and activists engaged in research and action around the role of Black religious practices in social justice movements.
Josh Moss has served as editor of Louisville Magazine since 2014, and he began working at the publication upon graduating from OhioUniversity in 2006. He’s written about Pappy Van Winkle mania, the city’s oldest Black-owned funeral home, Louisville’s last abortion clinic, the divide between east and west Louisville, and how the city has changed since March 2020. He spent a year working on a profile of rapper Jack Harlow. In 2013, he ate 38 burgers in 31 days on a quest to find the city’s best. In 2020, the magazine won a General Excellence award from the City and Regional Magazine Association.
