April 24th, 2014 Mahani Teave: Easter Island’s only classical pianist I recently saw a BBC feature by a Santiago-based correspondent on a young woman named Mahani Teave who is Easter Island’s only classical pianist. These are the type of stories I find truly inspiring. When you think of this remote and isolated South Pacific island, […]
music
World Music Teaches You Everything
April 3rd, 2014 Music tells the stories of our world I majored in Humanities as an undergraduate because it was broad-based and I could take many courses, from California Geography to Entomology to history, philosophy, languages and literature. Later, I took an MA in Comparative Literature for similar reasons: I could read the great writers […]
Love and Romance: Our 3 Favorites in Music, Literature, Art and Film
February 13th, 2014 Last year for Valentine’s Day we posted a blog on how different cultures and countries celebrate the day. This year, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I’ve invited three of my friends and contributors to ACEI’s AcademicExchange blog to chime in and share their most favorite romantic songs/musical compositions, literary creations, film and […]
Calypso Gets Muzzled in Guyana
January 16th, 2014 Q: Why is it that music always gets banned in totalitarian regimes? A: Because music is a human expression of freedom. Q: Why did the Vatican try to suppress music that had any rhythm to it? A: Because rhythm is dangerous and might make people want to get down, shake some booty, even fornicate. In Germany […]
Nelson Mandela, South African Music and the Struggle Against Apartheid
December 26th, 2013 On December 5, 2013, Nelson Mandela, a beloved hero, a giant of history and one of the greatest visionary leaders of our time who fought to protect and promote human rights, passed away. As we come to the end of 2013, we would like to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela by sharing […]
Martin Heidegger’s Influence On “Riders On The Storm”
December 5th, 2013 Heidegger’s Concept: “Geworfenheit” (“Thrown-ness”) The song is a 60′s classic: “Riders On The Storm”. We’ve heard it a thousand times. But do many people know it may well be associated with the thinking of a modern German metaphysical philosopher? Jim Morrison was a voracious reader; even his senior-year high school English teacher […]
The Difficult Life For Those Born Albino In Africa
August 22nd, 2013 Joseph Torner from the film, In the Shadow of the Sun There is a new film about being born albino in Africa, In the Shadow of the Sun. The name derives from the classic book, The Shadow of the Sun by Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski. In this moving narrative, the author talks […]
Keepin’ It Eclectic and Worldwide!
July 18, 2013 This week’s Rhythm Planet features a wide variety of new music from around the world in many different styles. We feature some Brazilian classics from the band Azymuth and French bossa novista Nicola Conte’s new collection Viagem 5, some cool vibes to beat the heat with Joe Locke and Milt Jackson; we debut new albums […]
America’s Jazz Ambassadors
May 16, 2013 During the cold war in the 1950s and 60s, when America was worried about Sputnik, ICBMs, and building bomb shelters, there was a quiet but determined cultural diplomacy going on behind the Iron Curtain. The U.S. State Department around the mid-1950s started sending American jazz musicians into Russia, newly-independent African nations (whom […]
Mali: A country under siege; its music silenced.
January 18, 2013 Without music, life would be a mistake. ~-Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols Why They Hate Music? When the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran in 1979, he said the following: “Music is no different than opium. Music affects the human mind in a way that makes people think of nothing but music […]