Arts & Sciences

Saxophonist Jason Swagler opens the spring Jazz at Holmes Series at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4. The series, which was launched in 1996, features professional jazz musicians from around St. Louis and abroad performing in Holmes Lounge — a casual, coffeehouse-style setting — most Thursday evenings throughout the fall and spring semesters. 

Experts from the St. Louis Federal Reserve and around the country will be on the Washington University campus Friday, Feb. 5, to discuss the Federal Reserve’s role during the recent recession and future directions for policy. The free public conference, “Monetary Policy Amid Economic Turbulence,” begins at 2:30 p.m. in the Bryan Cave Moot Court Room, Anheuser-Busch Hall.

The George Warren Brown School of Social Work’s Livable Lives Initiative has awarded eight grants to faculty across the university. The selected projects investigate policies and programs designed to help those with low or moderate incomes achieve lives that are more stable, secure, satisfying and successful.

Seven musicians from the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra will join Seth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences and director of the piano program, for a performance of works by Toshi Ichiyanagi, Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert.

The Eiffel Tower and other world-class icons viewable online via webcams are getting a new three-dimensional look thanks to an innovative, browser-based application recently unveiled by Austin Abrams, a Ph.D. candidate at Washington University in St. Louis.

“The strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone.” So argues Dr. Thomas Stockmann, the beleaguered hero of Henrik Ibsen’s darkly funny thriller “An Enemy of the People.” New York’s Aquila Theatre Company returns to Edison Theatre Feb. 12 and 13 with a new production of Ibsen’s drama as well as William Shakespeare’s delirious, gender-bending comedy “As You Like It.”

Sustainability is a complicated and pressing topic that spans many fields and has many implications — personal, social, national and global. The 2010 MLA Saturday Lecture Series, sponsored by the master of liberal arts program of University College in Arts & Sciences, will explore topics relating to sustainability, a key element in Washington University’s education and research agenda.

Christopher Wilson (left), a freshman in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, demonstrates a musical instrument he built from found and recycled materials for members of ScrapArtsMusic, the acclaimed Vancouver percussion ensemble, in Edison Theatre Jan. 22. Wilson was one of four finalists in the Sounds of Sustainability competition, held in conjunction with a Jan. 23 concert by ScrapArtsMusic.

While the story of Michelangelo’s artistic genius has been told many times, the story of his social ambitions has been told scarcely at all. Indeed, scholars have largely dismissed the artist’s claims to noble birth. Yet it was precisely that belief that propelled Michelangelo’s lifelong quest not only to improve his family’s financial position, but to improve the very social standing of artists. So argues art historian William Wallace in the new biography “Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man, and his Times.” 

Nejla Yatkin, the 2010 Marcus Artist in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences’ Dance Program, will present an informal concert of her work at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 26. Yatkin — who was born and raised in Berlin but has Turkish roots — draws on a range of dance traditions to explore issues of memory, migration, identity and multiculturalism.