If you could choose any three University professors and give them a one-year sabbatical together to solve a problem, develop a theory or make a discovery, who would they be and what task would you assign them?
I would like to see composer Kaija Saariaho compose a setting of poet Louise Glück's amazing recent cycle Averno for performance by Dawn Upshaw. Glück has a university appointment at Yale and Upshaw at Bard; I can't find evidence of a university appointment for Saariaho, so if you won't accept her, I will substitute Osvaldo Golijov, who is appointed at Holy Cross. But I actually think Saariaho's style suits the poems better.
Also sprach Martha Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law & Ethics in the Law School, Philosophy and the Divinity School of the University of Chicago.
Somebody name Professor Nussbaum general manager of some major opera house like, NOW