Arts & Sciences

Seth Carlin, professor of music and head of the piano program in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been selected as an audition judge for the 69th annual auditions of the Artist Presentation Society.

As part of her series of Senior Listening Sessions across Missouri, Sen. Claire McCaskill held a roundtable discussion with experts on retirement security, elder justice and healthy aging March 31 at the Brown School’s Goldfarb Hall. Among the roundtable participants were seven from Washington University in St. Louis.

Roger J. Phillips, PhD, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and director emeritus of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, will deliver the McDonnell Distinguished Lecture on Wednesday, April 15, at Washington University in St. Louis. The lecture, titled “No Denying Climate Change on Mars,” will begin at 7 p.m. in Room 100 of Whitaker Hall.

Soprano Kate Reimann, a cofounder of Gateway Opera, and tenor Keith Boyer, named Best Male Opera Singer for 2014 by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will join the Washington University Symphony Orchestra and the Washington University Choirs for the annual Chancellor’s Concert April 12.


Author and veteran journalist Carla Power will deliver the Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman/Phi Beta Kappa Lecture for the Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series at 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 14, in Umrath Lounge on the Danforth Campus.

Introduced plants make up roughly half the diet of two subspecies of endangered tortoise, field research in the Galapagos reveals. Tortoises  seem to prefer non-native to native plants and the plants may help them to stay well-nourished during the dry season.

In a career spanning more than 40 years and nearly 50 albums, John Abercrombie has established himself as one the masters of jazz guitar. At 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, the John Abercrombie Quartet will perform as part of the Jazz at Holmes Series at Washington University in St. Louis.

Ken Burns, director and producer of some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, has been selected to give the 2015 Commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. Wrighton made the announcement to the Class of 2015 during the annual senior class toast Thursday, April 2, in the Danforth University Center. Commencement is Friday, May 15.

A small team of chemists, having learned the secrets of light absorption from chlorophylls a and b, can now tune molecules to absorb anywhere in the solar spectrum. They are using this facility to synthesize pigments that fill gaps in the sunlight absorbed by native pigments and to push deeper into the infrared than any native pigment.

Dancer Samantha Gaitsch is a familiar face to campus audiences. Over the next two weekends, Gaitsch will perform with The Slaughter Project, company-in-residence in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, and will co-direct “Step, Turn, Leap!,” the 2015 Student Dance Showcase.