Arts & Sciences

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.Thurgood Marshall (center) with George E.C. Hayes and James Nabri celebrating the historic Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.For the past 50-plus years, civil rights litigation has greatly affected Americans’ lives. It has secured our Constitutional rights, and it has dramatically improved many of our public and private institutions. Information about these cases, however, has been exceedingly difficult to locate. Until now. More…

Four aspiring playwrights will present staged readings of their work Nov. 16 and 17 as part of Washington University’s 2006 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival. Sponsored by the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, the festival’s selection process actually began in January, when students from across the university submitted original plays to an adjudication committee made up of faculty and theater professionals. The committee then selected four plays — two full-length works and two shorts — to undergo an intense two-week workshop this fall, culminating in the staged readings.

Dan Morgenstern, director of the Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University, will speak on “The Great Jazz Schism” at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14. A former editor of Down Beat magazine, Morgenstern has won six Grammy awards for best album notes and served as a senior advisor to Ken Burns 10-part PBS series Jazz. Earlier this year he was named a “Jazz Master” by the National Endowment for the Arts — a designation The New York Times calls “the nation’s highest jazz honor.”

The Washington University Wind Ensemble will perform a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 9, in the University’s Graham Chapel. Dan Presgrave, instrumental music coordinator in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, directs the program, which includes music of Franz Joseph Haydn, Malcolm Arnold, Franz von Suppé and Gordon Jacob.

Mezzo soprano Jade Lin Hornbaker, a master’s candidate in vocal performance in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, will present a graduate voice recital at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, in the auditorium of the Uncas A. Whitaker Hall for Biomedical Engineering. The program includes music of Modest Mussorgsky, Robert Schumann, Francis Poulenc and John Ireland.

It’s election season once again, but the political fun continues even after votes are cast. On Thursday, Nov. 9, the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will host “Playwrights and Politics: Two Acts on the National and International Scene.” The symposium will examine the nature of political theatre and the impact of the arts on national and international politics.

Set in pre-revolutionary Russia, the play tells the story of Tevye, a hardworking milkman who must find suitable husbands for his three eldest daughters.

Speakers will include William H. Gass, Richard “Red” Watson, Margarita Boyers and Robert Boyers.

Photo by David Kilper

The Department of English in Arts & Sciences will host a memorial reading in honor of Charles Newman, an acclaimed writer and longtime faculty member, who passed away last March at the age of 67. Speakers will include William H. Gass, Richard “Red” Watson, Margarita Boyers and Robert Boyers.