Arts & Culture

Aaron Copland and George Gershwin are perhaps the most iconically American of composers. On Oct. 21, three faculty from WUSTL’s Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will join a string quartet from the St. Louis Symphony for the concluding concert of the 2012 American Arts Experience-St. Louis. The program will highlight works by Copland and Gershwin as well as by Antonín Dvorák, who played a prominent role in encouraging American composers.

Design with the Other 90%: CITIES, now on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, collects dozens of smart, problem-solving projects from around the globe. On Saturday, Oct. 20, six St. Louis not-for-profits will present their own “Community Design Challenges” as part of the museum’s fall Community Day. The free, all-ages event also will feature art-making, scavenger hunts and other activities.

Over the course of 10 novels, Richard Powers has emerged as one of today’s most challenging and philosophically minded authors. On Oct. 16 and 18, Powers, the Visiting Hurst Professor of Creative Writing, will present a pair of events for The Writing Program’s fall Reading Series.

The Florist’s Daughter, Patricia Hampl’s most recent memoir, opens with a striking scene. As her mother lays dying, the writer sits at her bedside and begins composing an obituary on a plain yellow notepad. What follows is a loving tribute to her parents and to the startling passions that define supposedly ordinary lives.​

Over the last century, nearly 1,900 square miles of Louisiana wetlands — an area approximately the size of Delaware — have disappeared. Now the Sam Fox School’s John Hoal is leading STUDIO MISI-ZIBBI, one of three finalist teams in the international competition “Changing Course: Navigating the Future of the Lower Mississippi River Delta.”

“Welcome to cabaret!” declares the Master of Ceremonies. “Leave your troubles outside! Life is disappointing? Forget it! In here, life is beautiful! The girls are beautiful! Even the orchestra is beautiful!” Welcome to The Kit-Kat Club, Germany’s most decadent nightspot. And welcome to Cabaret. The Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will stage the groundbreaking musical Oct. 19-28 in Edison Theatre.

In 1997, Laurie Berkner began selling her debut album out of her Manhattan apartment. Today, Berkner is the “Queen of Children’s Music,” a regular on Nick Jr. and a founding member of “Kindie Rock” – progressive, kid-friendly music that isn’t saccharine or dumbed-down. On Oct. 20, Berkner will launch Edison’s 2012-13 ovations for young people series with a solo acoustic show in the 560 Music Center.

Can instrumental music communicate specific information? The question is not only academic, says Michael Beckerman, professor of music at New York University, who has studied music at the Terezin concentration camp. On Oct. 8, Beckerman will discuss “Terezin, Land of Invisible Texts” for the Department of English in Arts & Sciences. The talk is held in memory of Richard Stang, professor emeritus in English, who passed away last year.

“Improvisation isn’t matter of just making any ol’ thing up,” jazz great Wynton Marsalis once observed. “Jazz, like any language, has its own grammar and vocabulary.” On Thursday, Oct. 4, guitarist William Lenihan and poet Eileen G’Sell will put that analogy to the test with “The New Beat Generation,” an evening of improvised music and poetry, presented as part of the Jazz at Holmes Series.

At the turn of the last century, Australian composer Percy Aldridge Grainger developed a fascination with folk music of the British Isles. Among the results was Molly on the Shore, an arrangement of two traditional Irish reels, or dances. On Oct. 7, the Washington University Wind Ensemble will perform Molly on the Shore as part of a free concert marking the public debut of new conductor Chris Becker.