Arts & Culture

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

Photo by Kevin LowderCarl Safe (center) helps students cut the ribbon at the Grand Center plaza dedication.Ten architecture majors from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts designed and built a public plaza for visual art in Grand Center that was dedicated Dec. 15. The project, begun last fall, teamed the students with Grand Center Inc., a non-profit organization that develops district arts initiatives and real estate, and the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts.

The Washington University Chamber Orchestra will present a free public concert at 8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 22. The program will include music of George Frideric Handel, Camille Saint-Saens, Samuel Barber and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Ray Bradbury’s vision of the future was a scary one indeed. Of course, that’s the point of being a science-fiction writer, but in his classic Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury wrote about firemen who didn’t necessarily put out fires. Rather, they started them in order to burn books and suppress learning and knowledge. The book is the centerpiece of a National Endowment for the Arts-supported program in February. “The Big Read,” hosted by the University in partnership with several local organizations, will feature lectures, readings, art exhibits, theater productions, book discussion groups and film festivals featuring the themes of Bradbury’s novel.

Lawton will launch one of the first events in conjunction with the program when he speaks for the university’s Assembly Series at 11 a.m. Jan. 24, in Graham Chapel. His talk, titled “Burning to Read,” will address the fundamental importance of reading, having choices and of having books both in printed and digital form. In addition, the event will include several staged readings from Fahrenheit 451 performed by English Department professor Dan Shea and Washington University students. The program is free and open to the public. For more information: visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu, or call 314-935-4620.

Lighting designer Paul A. Zaferiou will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Architecture Lecture Series Jan. 22. Zaferiou, a 1975 alumnus of Washington University, is president and principal of Lam Partners Inc., a lighting consulting firm whose credits include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and The Getty Villa in Malibu, CA, among many others. The lecture series will continue Jan. 29 with Winy Maas, a principal of MVRDV, the Office of Architecture and Urbanism, in Rotterdam.

Ralph Stewart*The Dead Father*Choreographer Paul D. Mosley — artistic director for the Vassar Repertory Dance Theatre at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY — will return to St. Louis for the first time in a decade to perform an evening of new and old dance works.

Feinknopf PhotographyLam Partners Inc.Lighting designer Paul A. Zaferiou will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ spring Architecture Lecture Series Jan. 22. Zaferiou, a 1975 alumnus of Washington University, is president and principal of Lam Partners Inc., a lighting consulting firm whose credits include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and The Getty Villa in Malibu, CA, among many others. The lecture series will continue Jan. 29 with Winy Maas, a principal of MVRDV, the Office of Architecture and Urbanism, in Rotterdam.

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesKaylin Boosalis as Alma and Lee Osorio as OskarIn 1973, while a doctoral student at Indiana University, Henry I. Schvey befriended the eminent Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980). Now chair of Washington University’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, Schvey has written Kokoschka: A Love Story, an original drama about the artist’s torrid affair with Alma Mahler (1879-1964), the beautiful widow of composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911).

Courtesy photoDaniel Bernard Roumain (DBR)Cutting-edge composer Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) and the string quartet section (SQ Unit) of his band, DBR & THE MISSION, will celebrate Black History Month with a rare performance of DBR’s A Civil Rights Reader at Washington University’s Edison Theatre Jan. 26. The evening will feature four of DBR’s string quartets celebrating four iconic figures from the American Civil Rights Movement: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Maya Angelou.