Arts & Sciences

Three aspiring playwrights will present staged readings of their works Sept. 26-27 as part of the 2008 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival, sponsored by the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences.

Harold BlumenfeldWithin a month of publishing his notorious collection Les Fleurs du mal (“Flowers of Evil,” 1857), the French poet Charles Baudelaire was charged with insulting public decency and ordered to remove six works from subsequent editions. Yet Baudelaire’s poems, which centered on themes of eroticism and mortality, would influence generations of writers. Now St. Louis composer Harold Blumenfeld has recorded Vers Sataniques (“Satanic Verse”), a major new piece based on Les Fleurs du mal, which will be featured as part of a mixed media concert Oct. 13.

Novelist Zachary Lazar, author of Sway (2008), will read from his work at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, for the Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. Set in the 1960s, Sway interweaves three emblematic stories of the period: the early days of the Rolling Stones, the life of filmmaker Kenneth Anger and the rise of Charles Manson and his followers.

Marge BetleyThree aspiring playwrights will present staged readings of their works Sept. 26 and 27 as part of the 2008 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival, sponsored by the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences. Named in honor of alumnus A.E. Hotchner (AB and JD ’40), the festival consists of an intensive two-week workshop that culminates in the staged readings. This year’s workshop is led by Marge Betley, literary manager and resident dramaturg for the Geva Theatre Center in Rochester, NY.

A team of researchers headed by biologists at Washington University in St. Louis has sequenced the genome of a unique bacterium that manages two disparate operations — photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation — in one little cell during two distinct cycles daily.

Unicellular nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteriaA team of researchers headed by biologists at Washington University in St. Louis has sequenced the genome of a unique bacterium that manages two disparate operations — photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation — in one little cell during two distinct cycles daily.

Celebrated violinist Martin Chalifour, principal concertmaster for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will join musicians from Washington University and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra for a chamber music recital at 7 p.m., Monday, Sept. 22.

A team of researchers headed by biologists at Washington University has sequenced the genome of a unique bacterium that manages two disparate operations — photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation — in one little cell during two distinct cycles daily.

Though no scores are included in his published works, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) frequently employed music in his plays, writing poems for new songs and adopting existing ballads. On Oct. 6 the acclaimed period music trio Ensemble Chaconne, joined by mezzo-soprano Pamela Dellal, will present “Measure for Measure: The Music of Shakespeare’s Plays,” a concert of works associated with the Bard, in the university’s Edison Theatre.

Clarinetist Scott Alberici and his quartet will launch Washington University’s Jazz at Holmes Series 8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 11. The series, which has delighted local jazz enthusiasts since 1996, features professional jazz musicians from around St. Louis and abroad performing in Holmes Lounge — a casual, coffeehouse-style setting — most Thursday evenings at 8 p.m. […]