Here’s the link to my article about the university’s efforts to commission original works in the performing arts that appears in the Spring issue of the magazine. Here’s an excerpt:

Since the 2008-09 Visiting Artist Series, the University has showcased eight new commissioned works by such artists as the Kronos Quartet and Wu Man, the Richard Alston Dance Company and Tim Robbins’ The Actors’ Gang. The University has already commissioned at least six more works for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons — most notably The Actors’ Gang’s anticipated stage adaptation of author Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States — in a growing effort to establish the University as a leader in the creation of new works in music, dance and theater.

“What if we had no more new music?” Thompson says. “What if we had stopped with Bach? What if we said, ‘Okay, nobody’s going to do better than that. Let’s stop now.’ If that happened the world wouldn’t have gotten to hear Mozart or Stravinsky. Can you image a world where nothing new was being created? I feel it’s our responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen. I think it’s one of the most important things we’re doing right now. There’s a cultural legacy that we have to leave.”