October-November Highlights

Department of Music
University Symphony Orchestra Annual Halloween Concert
7 and 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 30
Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th St. 702-9075. http://music.uchicago.edu. Donations requested. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.

In the spirit of Halloween, the University Symphony Orchestra is once again putting on its popular annual Halloween concert. This year’s program, titled “Ring of Destiny,” will feature excerpts from Wagner’s masterpiece Der Ring des Nibelungen, including the forging of the ring from magic gold in Das Rheingold to the flight of Brünnhilde and the Valkyries in Die Walküre (enhanced by dancers from the Hyde Park School of Ballet). The program also includes the haunting and heroic soundscapes created by Johann de Meij and Howard Shore, which evoke the realm of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Orchestra performers, under the baton of maestra Barbara Schubert, will appear in costume, and audience members also are encouraged to do so. There will be two performances of the program, at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

University Hospitals
Comer Kids’ Classic 5K
10 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 23
The race begins at 58th St. and University Ave. 834-0180. Register online at http://www.uchospitals.edu/about/comer/kids-classic.php. Applications are available at all hospital entrances. $20 to pre-register, $25 race-day registration. The kids’ dash is $10.

The Second Annual Comer Kids’ Classic 5K Run will wind through campus and the Hyde Park neighborhood. All funds raised by the race will benefit the new University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, scheduled to open this winter. About 500 runners participated last year, and organizers hope to double that number this year. The run was created by a family whose young son received excellent care at the University’s Children Hospital. Named for Gary Comer, who donated $21 million to help build the children’s hospital, the $130-million facility is 242,000 square feet and is located at 5721 S. Maryland Avenue.

Rockefeller Memorial Chapel
The Bat
8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 29
5850 S. Woodlawn Ave. 702-7059. $10 general, $8 students and seniors. Tickets will be sold at the door only.

Continuing a Rockefeller Chapel Halloween tradition, a silent, scary classic film will be screened with live organ accompaniment. This year, the chapel will show The Bat (1926), directed by Roland West. Organist Jay Warren will accompany the film with a spooky score.

The Divinity School
2004 John Nuveen Lecture
4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4
Swift Lecture Hall, 1025 E. 58th St. Free.

Mark Strand, the Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Thought, will deliver this year’s John Nuveen Lecture at the Divinity School. Strand, who just received the 2004 Wallace Stevens Award, also has served as the Poet Laureate of the United States. He won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Blizzard of One, as well two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and a MacArthur fellowship.