"If coders are the next artists, the MIT Museum is the MFA of the future." Or so says John Rossheim in an article on the museum which appeared March 30, on the Boston.sidewalk.com web site. While the primary focus is on hacks, there are also profiles of the Piranesi in Perspective exhibition, Arthur Ganson's Gestural Engineering and the Hart Nautical Gallery. The home page's lead that day, titled "High Intelligence," also featured the World Music Weekend, which took place at MIT April 3-5.
In addition to preparing for their concert in Kresge Auditorium tonight, the MIT Brass Ensemble, directed by Lawrence Isaacson, performed at Symphony Hall's Open House on April 5. On May 3, the ensemble will join members of the Boston Conservatory Brass Ensemble for a "Brass Bash" at St. Cecelia's Church in Boston.
Professor Emeritus David Epstein ended his tenure as conductor of the MIT Symphony Orchestra on a high note, earning praise for the March 14 performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. "The strings glowed in the noble first theme of the Adagio, the winds echoing them with equal luster; the gorgeous final variation ascended in ecstatic spirals," wrote Susan Larson for the Boston Globe. "Orchestral abandon grew steadily through the double fugues and erupted in a terrific ending. A fine and fond farewell to a beloved maestro."
Local artist Aaron Fink's large (108" x 72") oil painting, Out for a Walk, was recently installed in the Building E23/E25 atrium. The painting, a 1997 gift of Roger Sonnabend (SB '46) and his wife Joan, found an appropriate setting near MIT Medical. "After all, walking is a very healthy, easily available form of exercise," observed Medical Director Arnold Weinberg. Out for a Walk is the largest of several Fink pieces in the MIT Permanent Collection, which is maintained by the List Visual Arts Center and sited throughout the campus -- in offices, reception areas, atria and other public areas.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 8, 1998.
