Arts & Culture

Beginning May 8, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will showcase “Rirkrit Tiravanija: Chew the Fat,” a multifaceted video installation that together profiles a loose-knit group of 12 internationally known artists.

A handsome prince, a distant land, a damsel in distress. Yet in the world of The Magic Flute, little is as it seems. Next week the Washington University Opera will present an abridged version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756-91) beloved classic in Karl Umrath Hall.

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will honor six outstanding architecture and art alumni at its second annual Awards for Distinction dinner April 23. Recipients will include Ralph Cunningham (BA 1983), Ann Fertig Freedman (BFA 1971), Tom Friedman (BFA 1988) and Harry C. Kendall (BA 1978). In addition, Sara Velas (BFA 1999) will receive the 2009 Young Alumni Award. Judy Pfaff (FA71) will receive the Dean’s Medal for distinguished service to the school.

Three campus ensembles will join forces April 26 for the 2009 Chancellor’s Concert. The Washington University Jazz Band will open the program with a selection of big band scores. The Washington University Symphony Orchestra will perform music of Leonard Bernstein and Robert Schumann while the Washington University Concert Choir will present a selection of popular opera choruses. To conclude the program, all three ensembles will share the stage for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

Rirkrit Tiravanija creates spare yet provocative installations designed to blur lines between art and life, transforming galleries and museums into ephemeral social spaces for cooking meals, playing music and hanging out. Beginnin in May the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis will showcase one recent project with its exhibition Rirkrit Tiravanija: Chew the Fat, a multifaceted video installation that together profiles a loose-knit group of 12 internationally known artists.

The Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging is hosting the 2009 Friedman Conference April 21 at the Eric P. Newman Education Center from 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. The conference, titled “In the Words of the Artist: The Influence of Age on Creativity and Expression,” focuses on the ways artists experience the aging process and how it affects creativity and expression.

Washington University’s Eliot Trio will perform music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) and Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 19, in the 560 Music Center’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. Named for Washington University founder William Greenleaf Eliot, the trio consists of Seth Carlin, professor of music and director of the piano program in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences; violinist David Halen, concertmaster for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra; and cellist Bjorn Ranheim, also with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Nonfiction writer and St. Louis native Nick Reding will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 16, for Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. Reding is the author of The Last Cowboys at the End of the World: The Story of the Gauchos of Patagonia (2001), which explores a semi-nomadic culture that was once thought to have all put disappeared at the end of the 19th century.

Armies burning with religious fervor, towns overrun by mercenary violence, a family disintegrating amidst the crossfire. Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children is widely considered the greatest anti-war play of the 20th century. Later this month Washington University’s Performing Arts Department will present this epic tale of a protective yet all-too pragmatic matriarch as its spring Mainstage production.