March Highlights

	The 41st Annual Eastern European Folk Festival of Music and Dance includes dance workshops and performance.

International House Events
The 41st Annual Eastern European Folk Festival of Music and Dance
Friday, March 17 - Sunday, March 19
Assembly Hall, 1414 E. 59th Street
(773)753-2270. http://ihouse.uchicago.edu

The Spring Festival Series at International House will begin with the 41st Annual Eastern European Folk Festival of Music and Dance on Friday, March 17. This eagerly awaited annual event draws enthusiasts of Balkan music, dance, food and culture from throughout North America to Chicago for a weekend of fun. The program will start on Friday evening with a dance party in the Assembly Hall beginning at 8:00 p.m. Folk dance & music workshops are scheduled throughout the day on both Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with master teachers from around the world. There will also be a gala event on Saturday night starting at 6:00 p.m. featuring an Eastern European buffet, performance and dance party with live music.

	Flautist Mathias Ziegler

The Renaissance Society
Mathias Ziegler
8 p.m. Tuesday, March 21
10 a.m.Ð5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Cobb Hall, 5811 S. Ellis Ave., 4th Floor.
(773) 702-8670. http://renaissancesociety.org. Free.

Mathias Ziegler is one of the world’s most versatile and innovative flautists. He is committed to traditional and contemporary music and concepts that cross the boundaries between classical music and jazz. Accordingly, his performances take place in a vast range of contexts. Ziegler is principal flutist with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and performs regularly with the percussionist Pierre Favre as well as contrabass player Mark Dresser. He also is a member of the “Collegium Novum Zurich,”,where he has worked with Mauricio Kagel, Heinz Holliger and George Crumb.

	A dawn view of the Dura citadel and excavation house with the Euphrates beyond.

Oriental Institute
“Desert Fortress: Life & Violent Death in Roman Dura-Europos, Syria.”
7 p.m. Wednesday, March 29
Breasted Hall, Oriental Institute Museum
1155 E. 58th St. (773) 702-9514.
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu. Free.

Around the year 256 A.D., a large Iranian army marched up the Euphrates river from Iraq under the command of the Sasanian Persian King Shapur the Great. Before they could plunder Aleppo or Antioch, they would first have to take the riverside city of Dura-Europos. When the siege finally came, the city was abandoned to the winds and the very name of the ruins was forgotten for over 16 centuries. This lecture by Simon James of the University of Leicester presents the dramatic tale of the recovery of Dura, illustrating how its history was pieced together by a series of archaeological discoveries.

	Aurelio Marinati. Somma di tutte le scienze, 1587.

Special Collections Research Center
The Legacy of Virdung: Rare Books on Music from the Collection of Frederick R. Selch
Through June 15, 2006
8:30 a.m. Ð 4:45 p.m. Monday Ð Friday
Special Collections Research Center, Joseph Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St.
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl.

Books, musical instruments, prints and other objects drawn from the private collection of the prominent New York scholar, writer and musician, Frederick R. Selch (1930-2002) are on view in this traveling loan exhibition. The exhibition includes 16th-century works on musical instruments, 17th-century theoretical treatises, as well as books on specific instruments by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin.