The works of 32 composers from countries affected by war and other conflicts will be featured in a concert Jan. 24 at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland — a suburb of Washington, D.C.

Award-winning Israeli-American pianist Yael Weiss curated the concert, “32 Bright Clouds,” which she said was inspired by 32 sonatas by famed composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

She asked the 32 composers to write new piano pieces, inspired by one of the sonatas, that reflect on a key event or figure from their respective countries.

The countries showcased include Ghana, Syria, Bhutan, the Philippines, Iran, Venezuela, Turkey, Jordan and Indonesia.

Indonesian pianist Ananda Sukarlan wrote a composition about religious intolerance based on the guilty verdict against former Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok, who was accused of blasphemy last year.

“I connect my composition with Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ since the governor’s name is Purnama, or moonlight in English,” Ananda told VOA. “I was so devastated when Ahok was sentenced to two years in prison after being found guilty of blasphemy. This case was a test to our religious tolerance, and I think it was the darkest moment in Indonesia history.

“The title of my composition is ‘No More Moonlight Over Jakarta,'” he said.

Ahok was put on trial in December 2016 over accusations that he insulted Islam while campaigning in the Seribu Islands near the capital of Jakarta.

During the campaign event, Ahok quoted a verse in the Quran to prove to his supporters that there were no restrictions on Muslims voting for non-Muslim politicians. His statement was edited and widely spread on social media, triggering charges of blasphemy, as well as protests and threats against him.

The previously popular Chinese-Christian governor lost the election and was later jailed. He will be released from prison on Jan. 24 — the day of the concert.

Among the other composers are Malek Jandali of Syria, whose piece, “The Hunt for Peace,” is dedicated to Syrian children, and Ghanaian composer George Mensah Essilfie, who wrote “Hope for the Shackled,” dedicated to the people who are physically chained and held at alleged faith-based camps in Ghana and are not being treated for their psychotic disorders.

The concert is also a precursor to global events that will be staged around the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020.
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Floral floats and marching bands took to the streets under a sunny California sky as the 130th Rose Parade drew hundreds of thousands of spectators on New Year’s Day and millions more watched on TV.

Among the fanciful floats was an award-winning entry from the UPS Store that featured a book-reading, ballet-practicing ostrich named Olive decked out with more than 30,000 pale pink carnations.

The annual extravaganza in Pasadena kicked off with a performance by singer Chaka Khan, the grand marshal of the parade, and featured 40 floats decorated with countless flowers and waving celebrities. The theme was “The Melody of Life.”

There was plenty of sunshine and calm breezes, with temperatures reaching about 60 degrees (16 degrees Celsius) after a chilly and windy night. Dozens of people staked out prime viewing spots on Monday and slept bundled up along the route, where overnight temperatures dipped into the 30s (about 3 degrees Celsius).

The parade was briefly interrupted when a float celebrating U.S. railroad heritage broke down and erupted in smoke. Marching bands were able to move around the Chinese American Heritage Foundation’s “Harmony Through Union” entry, but other floats couldn’t, causing a brief backup.

“We’ve had a bit of a malfunction,” Leeza Gibbons told KTLA-TV viewers. “They’re scrambling right now.”

The disabled float was eventually towed from the route, and the parade resumed. The interruption caused long gaps, and some people began leaving until a monitor came along yelling, “The parade’s not over!”

Spectators shouted, “Thank you,” to U.S. Forest Service firefighters marching behind a float with Smoky Bear and traded “alohas” with horseback riders from Hawaii.

California Polytechnic State Universities’ entry, “Far Out Frequencies,” was awarded for its use of statice, marigolds and strawflowers grown on the San Luis Obispo campus. It featured a pair of astronauts playing music to communicate with aliens they encountered on a distant planet.

Along with the many floats, the parade featured 18 equestrian groups and 21 marching bands. Among them are bands from Ohio State University and the University of Washington, whose teams will compete in Tuesday’s Rose Bowl.

Local high school senior Louise Deser Siskel was crowned the 101st Rose Queen. She wrote in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times about how she would use the platform to advocate for science education, the importance of science informing public policy and the value of inclusion.

“Personally, I am happy to be the first Rose Queen to wear glasses on the float (even though they clash with the crown), and the first Rose Queen to talk about being Jewish. I feel an additional responsibility to myself and to this tradition, to share that I am bisexual,” she wrote.

 
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The year 2018 was one of box office successes and awards of artistic recognition for black films, from Marvel Comic’s action flick Black Panther to the fact-based drama Blackkklansman.

Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, about a fictional African king with superhero powers and his technologically advanced country, Wakanda, has received dozens of awards, including three Golden Globe nominations. The American Film Institute recognized it as one of the year’s ten best movies for its social and artistic significance celebrating African and African-American cultures.

Musing about the film’s power, producer Nate Moore told VOA, “I think that for African-American audiences there is a lot to pull from. And hopefully there is some inspiration again learning about the roots where African-Americans came from.”

Black Panther, with the first black Superhero lead actor, grossed over a billion dollars domestically and internationally, making it the third highest grossing film ever in the U.S. It has been projected as an Oscar winner. But does its critical and financial success mean that Black films are becoming a Hollywood staple?

A turning point for black films?

It may be too soon to tell, says media expert Richard Craig, an associate professor of communication at George Mason University. “I think Hollywood is processing that as the way that Hollywood processes most things, and that’s looking at the bottom line, the profit margin. If a film does well in the box office and beyond the box office — because we have the opportunity of the merchandise, spinoffs in terms of shows, field games etc. Hollywood is going to say, ‘you know what? Maybe we can do another one, maybe we can do another two.’”

As long as audiences pay to see films with minorities as leads, Hollywood will keep on making them, Craig says, but adds that the industry still has a long way to go before it is willing to invest in high-budget film franchises such as James Bond or Spiderman with black actors as leads.

He points to the newly-released animated Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, which includes a black Spiderman. He said while he and his 12-year-old daughter enjoyed this new rendition of Spiderman, he felt a bit ambivalent about its animated form. “You are given this cartoon version of Spiderman to accept this black face as Spiderman as opposed to having a real time, real place actor.”

However, Craig says, smaller, independent black movies with a political or cultural message that feature real-live actors have a greater chance of making it to production.

Two such films this year are Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman, a dark satire based on a true story about an African-American cop infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan and If Beale Street Could Talk, a romantic drama about social injustice against blacks and incarceration of African-American men in 1970s America, by Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins.  Both films have been mentioned as Oscar contenders and share the spotlight in AFI’s list of best films of the year.

Room for smaller films

But small black films by lesser-known filmmakers get little promotion and financial backing. Just a few years after the beginning of the #BlackLivesMatter, musician and activist Boots Riley released his first film, Sorry to Bother You. It advocates activism against the economic exploitation of “Corporate America.”

“When art and organizing are married, then the art becomes a way for people to ruminate on what they can do and then they have a place to plug in,” Riley told VOA. “And then I think what happens is more artists are created from those movements.” He says he doubts his film would have made it to production if he relied on Hollywood to get it funded.  “Making your art is one thing and trying to get a job in what “they” [the Hollywood Industry] want to happen is another. The reason I was able to make a film like I made was because I wasn’t trying to get a job.”

He advises young filmmakers without financial backing to use digital platforms to get their films out.

It took Boots Riley four years to get his film made. But Sorry to Bother You is a success story. The film cost a little bit over three million dollars to make and has grossed over twenty million dollars.

The Hate U Give, by filmmaker George Tillman, about a police shooting of an African-American teen in a black community, also went viral, despite the fact that it had gotten little promotion. Tillman said that was because the film offered an authentic depiction of African-Americans killed by police and its message of standing up for justice resonated with audiences all over the country.

Boots Riley agrees that the overwhelmingly positive audience response towards thought-provoking African-American movies signals that black filmmakers can take charge of their narrative and film production.

“We have things to bring to the world that are not just changing the actors or changing the director,” he says, “and I think that black film can really start having its own stories.”

 
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2018 was a year of box office successes and awards of artistic recognition for black films. Marvel’s action flick “Black Panther” introduced the first black superhero lead actor and grossed over a billion dollars domestically and internationally. Other films with black leading characters also did well with audiences and critics. Do these distinctions signal that black films are finally part of the Hollywood mainstream? VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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The Rose Parade has been a New Year’s Day tradition since 1890.  Every inch of every float is covered with flowers or other natural materials, such as leaves, seeds or bark. The most delicate flowers, including roses, are placed in individual vials of water, which are set into the float one by one. The parade of dozens of floats, marching bands and equestrian units is watched by thousands along the 9 kilometer route through Pasadena, California, and by millions more on TV around the world. The colorful spectacle kicks off the “Rose Bowl” – an American college football final that is also a New Year tradition. Mike O’Sullivan reports, volunteers have been working day and night on displays to prepare for the parade early Tuesday.
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