News Briefs

O’Connor House ready for move-in

After a five-month renovation of its interior, O’Connor House is almost ready for its new occupants — Alumni Affairs and Career Services. The new tenants are slated to move in July 5.

The interior of the house has been converted from a residence to office space. Alumni Affairs will occupy the second floor and Career Services will reside on the first floor, which now includes a 700-square-foot addition to the home.

The two groups will share three meeting rooms and two conference rooms, as well as the front and back yards for outdoor events.

Shepherd School prof wins award

Karim Al-Zand, the Lynette S. Autrey Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at the Shepherd School of Music has been racking up recognition for his talents. Most recently, Al-Zand won the 2006 Louisville Orchestra Composition Competition with “The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad,” inspired by the book “Thousand and One Nights” and the stories of the mythical mariner Sindbad the Sailor. The winning piece will be performed by The Louisville Orchestra as part of the 40th annual Contemporary Music Festival to be held in November at Indiana State University.

Al-Zand also won first prize at the National ArtSong Competition with “The Secret of Your Heart,” a cycle of love songs drawn from texts by Rabindranath Tagore. This same cycle was the winner of the American Modern Ensemble’s Composition Competition and was featured in a New York concert in February.

Excerpts from “The Seventh Voyage of Sindbad” can be heard at <www.alzand.com/sindbad.html>; excerpts from “Secret of Your Heart” are at <www.alzand.com/tagore.html>.

Supercomputer open for faculty

Anyone in the Rice community whose research might benefit from time on a supercomputer may now apply for time on Rice’s largest and fastest research cluster, called “Ada.”

Named for 19th-century mathematician Ada Lovelace, the supercomputer is a Cray XD1 research cluster that came online in February. Faculty members can learn more at <http://rcsg.rice.edu/ada>.

However, the Ada research cluster will be offline
July 5-10 for a major system upgrade. Changes to Ada’s operating system and administrative software are expected to improve reliability and stability. Existing users should be aware that all temporary files on Ada will be erased during the upgrade and should be backed up before July 5.