Arts & Sciences

Stalin’s death in 1953 marked the beginning of a cultural and political thaw that gave way to greater economic, educational and artistic freedoms in Soviet society. In Leningrad, a seminal performance in 1961 by two towering figures of the day—composer Andrey Volkonsky (1933-2008) and pianist Maria Yudina (1899-1970)— and an attendant program of music previously censored by Soviet rule, characterized the resulting new forms of musical expression. That concert will be replicated Monday, March 30, by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra’s Community Partnership Program.

The Gateway Arch soars above St. Louis. Eero Saarinen’s awe-inspiring design is visually stunning, extraordinarily graceful and an architectural masterpiece, but it is also a mathematical marvel. Ever wondered about the shape of the Gateway Arch? Pre-eminent mathematician Robert Osserman, Ph.D., certainly has and will explain its mathematical mysteries in an Assembly Series lecture “How […]

Phyllis C. Rogier, accounting/payroll clerk in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, died Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009, of a heart attack at her home in St. Louis. She was 55.

The annual Washington University African Film Festival will be held March 26-29. The event will feature films that emphasize movement and migration and their impact on African’s shifting identities. “The African Film Festival is a unique event on this campus that I look forward to every year,” said junior Chiamaka Onwuzurike, president of the African […]

Pianist and harpsichordist Charles Metz, Ph.D., will perform on the virginal, a smaller, rectangular version of the harpsichord at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 22 at the 560 Music Center.

Photo by David Kilper”Candlestick Park,” the Hotchner-winning play by alumna Elizabeth Birkenmeier (LA ’08), opens March 26.

Some of the nation’s most prominent African-American writers and thinkers will meet at WUSTL March 25-28 during the 2009 Callaloo Conference.

Haba na Haba (Swahili for “step by step”) is an internationally renowned Kenyan performance group that first formed in the slums of Nairobi, using acrobatics, music, dance and drama to raise awareness and educate their communities on topics such as HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, reproductive health, women’s issues and violence. They are visiting St. Louis through March 23.

Fourteen students from the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences took part in the Central Region American College Dance Conference, held March 11 to 14 at Hendrix College in Conway, AZ. Adjudicators chose two works — Stuck in the Waiting by junior Eliotte Henderson and Falling Petals by lecturer Ting-Ting Chang, the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Dance — to be performed as part of the concluding Gala Concert.

AgarwalA mechanical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis is developing techniques that will lessen our monetary pain at the pump by reducing the drag of vehicles — planes, autos and trucks. Drag is an aerodynamic force that is the result of resistance a body encounters when it moves in a liquid or gaseous medium (such as air). Reduction in drag means less fuel would be required to overcome the fluid resistance encountered by the moving vehicle. Working with undergraduate and graduate students, Ramesh K. Agarwal, Ph.D, the William Palm Professor of Engineering at WUSTL, has successfully demonstrated that the drag of airplane wings and cars/trucks can be reduced by employing the active flow control technology.