Arts & Culture

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.

St. Louis’ Arianna String Quartet, widely hailed as among the nation’s finest chamber ensembles, will be joined by renowned pianist Seth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences, for a concert of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Erno Dohnanyi and Robert Schumann.

Stanford classics professor Richard Martin discusses Homeric poetry as a performance art in Ancient Greece, comparing it to modern rap, in the annual Assembly Series Biggs lecture at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 9 in Steinberg Hall.

Three prominent writers will examine “African American Literature Today” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 15, in Hurst Lounge. The discussion — sponsored by the African & African-American Studies Program and by the Center for the Humanities, both in Arts & Sciences — will focus on a pair of new anthologies, Best African American Essays 2009 and Best African American Fiction 2009, both published by Bantam Books.

Poet David Lehman, editor of The Best American Poetry series, will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 2, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. Lehman is the author of several collections of poems, including Poetry Forum: A Play Poem: A Pl’em (with Judith Hall, 2007), Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man (with James Cummins, 2006), When a Woman Loves a Man (2005), The Evening Sun (2002), The Daily Mirror: A Journal in Poetry (2000), Valentine Place (1996), Operation Memory (1990) and An Alternative to Speech (1986).

Fashion is fun, challenging, inspiring and everywhere. It is also hard work. Next week 11 seniors and seven juniors from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, home to the nation’s oldest four-year fashion design program, will present the fruit of their labors in the school’s 80th Annual Fashion Design Show at Lumière Place Casino & Hotels.

Tracy Davis, the Barber Professor of Performing Arts at Northwestern University and president of the American Society for Theatre Research, will present Washington University’s 2009 Helen Clanton Morrin Lecture at 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 1. Titled “The Witness Protection Program: Making Theatre, Everyday,” the talk is free and open to the public and sponsored by the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences.