Author: tourist_yp6g7u

NEW YORK (AP) — When Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” proved a sell-out hit at the Metropolitan Opera in 2021, general manager Peter Gelb wasted no time lining up the composer’s other opera for the current season.

And that set the clock ticking for Blanchard and his collaborators to adapt a relatively small-scale work to the vast resources of the nation’s premiere opera house.

“We knew we had only a year and a half, so we immediately went to work,” recalled Michael Cristofer, who wrote the libretto. “We had an opportunity to enhance and expand not just story points but also certain scenes. And you want to use all of what the Met is capable of. We were a bit like kids in a candy shop.”

“Champion,” which Blanchard calls “an opera in jazz,” premiered at Opera Theatre of St. Louis in 2013. It’s based on the troubled life of prizefighter Emile Griffith, who knocked out Benny Paret in a welterweight title bout in 1962. Paret never regained consciousness and died 10 days later.

Griffith was haunted by guilt, his feelings complicated by the fact that Paret had humiliated him by calling him a “maricón,” (a derogatory Spanish term for homosexual) during their weigh-in. Later in Griffith’s life, he was savagely beaten after leaving a gay bar.

Blanchard, who in addition to writing operas is known as a jazz trumpeter and composer of film scores, said he was inspired by Griffith’s own words, rephrased for poetic effect in Cristofer’s libretto: “I killed a man and the world forgives me; I love a man and the world wants to kill me.’”

“To me, ‘Champion’ is about redemption and Emile forgiving himself for what happened in the ring,” Blanchard said.

The original production was directed by James Robinson, the artistic director in St. Louis, who said it was “kind of a chamber piece.” There were just 18 people in the cast plus a four-piece jazz combo that plays along with a traditional orchestra.

For the Met, Robinson devised what he calls a “supersized version” that now brings close to 80 people on stage. Besides the soloists, there are 12 dancers, 10 actors and a chorus of 46. The new production also adds choreography by Camille A. Brown, who created a sensation with her work on “Fire.”

And Blanchard made significant changes to his score, adding new material and rewriting some sections to accommodate the different voice types of his lead singers.

“I’d say maybe 15 to 20 percent has been revised, but the more I think about it, it’s probably a lot more than that,” Blanchard said. There are new chorus parts and two new arias, one for Paret and one for Griffith’s trainer, Howie Albert.

The role of Griffith’s mother, Emelda, was originally written for mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves. At the Met, it will be sung by soprano Latonia Moore, prompting substantial alterations, like moving her first aria, “Seven Babies in the Sun,” up by an interval of a fourth.

And Blanchard has kept making changes even during rehearsals, as Moore recounted at a panel discussion at the Guggenheim Museum last month:

“One day he came up to me and said, ‘I feel this scene is a bit too low for you. Mind if I take it up?’”

“I said sure, fantastic,” she added. “I thought he’d come back in a couple days. Less than 30 minutes later, he had completely rewritten the scene. Within half an hour you had new music coming from the composer! This is something I wish I could ask Verdi and Puccini to do.”

Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green, who stars as the young Emile, was initially skeptical when Gelb asked him to take on the role.

“I had been offered it before and when I looked at the score I thought, ‘This is a little bit too high for me,’” Green said. “I like to sing high notes occasionally, but my voice doesn’t want to sit up there.”

Gelb persuaded him, saying, “Speedo, that’s the beauty of having a living composer. Things can change.”

And change they did, often subtly, with a note here and there taken down a few tones. In one passage shortly after Emile’s first entrance, Blanchard originally called for high G’s, which now have been lowered to B’s, one step below middle C.

In one instance, however, Green went in the opposite direction. For the climax of the aria “What Makes a Man a Man,” he told Blanchard, ″Man, I really want to take it up to create more drama.” So the original D-flat has now been raised to F.

By now, Blanchard’s place as the first Black composer to have an opera performed at the Met is widely known. But with “Champion,” he’s making another kind of history: He’s the first living composer in nearly 80 years to have different operas performed at the Met in back-to-back seasons. (The last was Richard Strauss with “Salome” in 1943-44 and “Der Rosenkavalier” in 1944-45.)

“Get outa here!” Blanchard said with a laugh when a reporter informed him of that distinction. “That’s crazy.”

And he’s quick to note that his streak will soon be extended, since the Met is reviving “Fire” next season.

And what about a third opera?

“Oh we have some ideas floating about,” Blanchard said. “But we’re just kind of biding our time. Rehearsals have been going so well, that’s where our focus has been.”

Says Robinson, “I told him, ‘You can’t just write two operas.’ But with Terence, it has to be the right story.”

“Champion,” which opens April 10 for nine performances, also stars bass-baritone Eric Owens as the older Emile, tenor Paul Groves as his trainer, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Kathy Hagen, owner of a gay bar, and baritone Eric Greene as Paret. Yannick Nezet-Seguin, the Met’s music director, conducts. The matinee on Sat., April 29, will be shown live in HD in movie theaters worldwide.

The post Met premieres Blanchard’s `Champion,’ an `opera in jazz’ appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Black people are being targeted with misinformation, so ensuring the next generation can tell what’s true is “critical to freedom.”

Perhaps without even realizing it, we are inundated with information nearly everywhere in our lives. 

TV, radio, Spotify, SoundCloud, text messages, notifications that someone liked a post on Instagram/TikTok/Snapchat, news alerts, emails from teachers, advertising in every social media feed, and scrolling through the hundreds of posts up on the Shade Room every day. That is the media life of a teenager (and we’re probably missing a few things.)

And, especially as AI advances, it’s getting increasingly difficult for both students and adults to sift through this information for what’s real, what’s trustworthy, and what’s important.

So, while schools around the country rightfully focus on traditional student literacy, K-12 students in New Jersey will soon learn another form: information literacy.

Regardless of the school district and its demographics, we will have to teach information literacy and provide equitable access to this information across the state.EWA DZIEDZIC-ELLIOTT, PRESIDENT OF THE NEW JERSEY ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL LIBRARIANS

New Jersey became the first state to mandate that K-12 students learn information literacy to help students “weigh the flood of news, opinion, and social media they are exposed to both online and off,” Republican Sen. Mike Testa said in a statement.

Part of mandating it means that it will be accessible to all students, not just students in wealthier areas. 

“We are making an effort to equalize access to information literacy, as well as educational resources,” Ewa Dziedzic-Elliott, president of the New Jersey Association of School Librarians, wrote in a statement to Word In Black. The association was integral in getting this New Jersey law passed. 

“We are the only state in the country that is making this requirement into law,” Dziedzic-Elliott wrote. “Regardless of the school district and its demographics, we will have to teach information literacy and provide equitable access to this information across the state.”

But what is information literacy? 

Information or Media Literacy

Today’s information landscape is overwhelming.

Most people aged 40 or older grew up reading a newspaper or listening to the 6 o’clock news their parents put on, says Dr. Michelle H. Martin, the Beverly Cleary Professor for Children & Youth Services in the Information School at the University of Washington, and co-founder and board chair of Read-a-Rama.

But now, kids are “inundated with information constantly,” Martin says. Some might be from reputable sources, but they interact regularly with misinformation and disinformation. This makes media literacy much more critical, so they know how to evaluate a source.

“It’s a different type of reading,” Martin says. In addition to decoding what’s on the page, it’s also considering the source and assessing the argument being made. “This push toward information literacy is to help kids learn how to navigate and discern what they’re looking at and what they’re taking in.”

In fact, the World Health Organization declared us to be in an “infodemic” and is preparing a global curriculum to manage it.

“Everybody has access to the internet, and anybody can put out information,” says Brittney Smith, the senior manager of education partnerships (East) at News Literacy Project. “So it’s very important to know how to evaluate that information so you know what to trust and what to share with your social circles and your family.”

Plus, kids are growing up in a technological world. Whether you believe in “digital natives,” young people are often the most technologically advanced in their households, which can give an overinflated confidence regarding what they interact with on those devices.

“Just because you are a good user or navigator, training about the content is another step,” Martin says. “You see 2-year-olds who can very easily navigate an iPad. So when you grow up that way, then you think, ‘Oh, I got this.’ And you don’t necessarily got it.”

Literacy of All Kinds Is Critical to Freedom

Before her current role, Smith spent eight years working as a life science teacher, a job she was working at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. She learned in real time how many of her students and colleagues didn’t have the skills to evaluate information, repeatedly coming into her classroom to ask her questions about COVID.

“That really got me thinking about how it must feel to be bombarded by information that sounds really scary and then not have the tools to seek out other resources and see if they’re all agreeing,” Smith says.

In a 2018 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics, Black students had  significantly lower scores for computer and information literacy than their peers. The average score for Black students was 475, compared to 540 for white students and 563 for Asian students. The national average was 519.

The survey also found a connection between test scores and students eligible for reduced-price lunch. Schools where less than 10% of the student body was eligible saw an average score of 564, and the average score dropped to 476 when more than 75% of students were eligible.

Being literate allows you to find information you need to make your life and others’ better. It’s a skill that’s really basic for a democracy, Martin says, and “has been absolutely critical to freedom.”

“Democracy was not part of the landscape for Black people during enslavement,” Martin says. “Those of us who are living now as Black people in America owe it to our ancestors, some of whom died, to be able to gain literacy that would lead to their freedom.”

Martin recalled the Frederick Douglass quote that knowledge unfits a man to be a slave, and says that’s more relevant now than ever as “politicians and government entities are trying to tell teachers and children what they should not have access to.”

“Besides making us stupid as a nation by deleting parts of the knowledge base, it’s also compromising the ability of children and young people to know the things that will lead to their freedom, whatever that freedom looks like for them,” Martin says. “That is a danger zone that we’re in now.”

Plus, Smith highlighted how the Black community is often a target of misinformation, especially during election cycles. 

“As an organization, we’d like to see widespread requirements for information literacy beginning as early as kindergarten,” Smith says. “It is imperative that students are graduating from high school with the skills they need to evaluate information and to think critically about claims they are encountering.”

What Information Literacy Training Looks Like

As with all forms of literacy, kids are never too young to start learning information literacy. 

At the News Literacy Project, there are free resources for students, educators, and the larger community. Plus, the students’ lessons are designed so they can take what they learned and share it with their family members. All lessons are taught by diverse subject matter experts and followed by an assessment and challenges to test their new skills.

And, as with all lessons, they will look different depending on the age group. Especially when it comes to information literacy, it depends how much independence kids have in online spaces. Schools and public libraries often have parental controls in place to keep certain sites off-limits, but those barriers might not be in place at home or on a personal device. 

It’s very important to know how to evaluate that information so you know what to trust and what to share with your social circles and your family.BRITTNEY SMITH, NEWS LITERACY PROJECT SENIOR MANAGER OF EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS (EAST)

As kids age, the training needs to become more sophisticated to help them figure out what sources are going to support their learning, Martin says. That could be accessing the online encyclopedia or finding where databases for specific fields are kept.

“It should increase as the child gets older and the sophistication of the information increases, but I don’t think it’s ever too early,” Martin says. “If you have a 2-year-old who’s using an iPad, they probably need some information there, too.”

The post Teaching Generation TikTok How to Tell What’s True Online appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Harlem Bespoke: Another post written in past celebrates the holiday season with uptown’s forgotten Jewish history. Did you know that Harlem was also uptown’s major Jewish neighborhood over a century ago?  You can find clues from to this part of Harlem history by looking closely at some of the churches like Mt. Olivet Baptist on Lenox Avenue and 120th Street.  The majestic Corinthian columns have a Star of David sculpted at the top detail and reveal that the historic site was once a former Jewish house of worship.  Temple Israel was built back in 1907 but the neighborhood would dramatically change by a couple of decades later and everything was converted to the famous Baptist church by 1925 in the roaring twenties.  

* This article was originally published here

Mayor Eric Adams has officially decided to ink a five-plus year contract with Aetna to provide a Medicare Advantage plan for the city’s roughly 250,000 retirees and their dependents. The plan aims to save the city $600 million in claims, but some believe the move will cut into retirees’ established healthcare benefits.

“Our administration has never wavered in our commitment to provide retirees and their dependents with high-quality, sustainable coverage while allowing us to rein in the skyrocketing costs of healthcare and the strain it is placing on our city’s budget,” said Adams in a statement.

The mayor’s office said that the new Aetna Medicare plan will provide a lower deductible for retirees and cap out-of-pocket expenses. Additionally, the plan significantly limits the number of procedures requiring prior authorization.

The contract was approved by the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC) on March 9. This September, retirees that have Medicare will automatically be enrolled in the new plan.

President of NYC Organization of Public Service Retiree, Marianne Pizzitola, feels that this will force retired city workers into a plan they don’t want. She was advocating for the mayor to consider Option C, which allows retirees to opt out and receive traditional Medicare or medigap plan. 

“It’s like I’m being forced or compelled to waive my city health benefits and by doing so I am losing my Medicare B reimbursements, in some cases my prescription plan,” said Pizzitola.

Pizzitola said that the opt out option that the city went with, HIP VIP Plan, is not available in all counties and some hospitals or doctors don’t accept the Medicare Advantage plan. She’s worried about co-pays for seniors, out-of-pocket costs, and useless perks. And she said, there are retirees with transplant or cancer treatments in facilities where Aetna is not in their network. She called the new plan “disingenuous.”

“We can help [the mayor] find wasteful spending in the city all day long but it should never be on the backs of a retired worker who’s disabled, infirm, who was made promises by the city that we would have premium free healthcare and a choice of our healthcare plan,” said Pizzitola.

She added that it’s especially disheartening considering the city workforce is primarily people of color and women of color and therefore many of its retirees are the same demographic. She said that many on a fixed income can’t pay rent or afford extra costs. “These are your ladies of color, mostly single seniors and are low-income retirees,” said Pizzitola. 

Jake Gardner of Walden Macht & Haran, a lawyer who is representing the organization, explained that the public service retiree group has already filed suit against the city three times over healthcare. A little over a year ago, they challenged the city’s initial Medicare Advantage plan. The courts ruled in their favor. In 2022, they sued the city and Emblem Health for charging retirees co-pays for their senior care, which is against the law. That litigation is ongoing, but in the meantime retirees aren’t being charged.

“This is our third time in the last year and a half suing the city for their attempt to deprive elderly and disabled retirees of their healthcare rights and so this is really becoming an assault on their healthcare rights of retirees,” said Gardner.

Gardner said that the retiree group does intend to challenge this Medicare Advantage plan as well but could not reveal details at this time since the lawsuit has not been filed yet.

They are also proposing a bill that mandates a medigap plan to “protect” retirees’ healthcare. Pizzitola said if she can get the bill introduced she’ll name it after former Councilmember Mary Pinkett. In the 1970s, Pinkett championed retired civil servant and city employer healthcare coverage under the 12-126 code. 

“With today’s historic award by the city of New York Office of Labor Relations, we’ll offer a customized Medicare Advantage plan that provides high-quality, affordable and convenient health care for City of New York retirees who’ve devoted their careers to serving New Yorkers,” said President of Aetna and Executive Vice President of CVS Health Dan Finke in a statement. “With nearly 60 years of Medicare expertise and experience, we stand ready to serve retirees through our network of primary care and specialty physicians, mental health providers and hospitals they know and trust.” 

The contract is valued at more than $15 billion over the course of the first five years and four months. The MLC can negotiate the contract every two years.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.

The post Adams for Medicare contract, retirees demand Option C appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

The Nets’ 107-102 home loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves at the Barclays Center on Tuesday night could prove to be costly. They were 43-36 and the No. 6 seed in the Eastern Conference heading into last night’s game against the Detroit Pistons on the road, just one game ahead of the No. 7 seed Miami Heat, which was 42-37 and played the 76ers in Philadelphia yesterday evening.

Both teams have two regular season games remaining. The Nets will play both their games in Brooklyn. They face the Orlando Magic tomorrow and the 76ers Sunday. The Heat have the Washington Wizards on the road tomorrow and the Magic in Miami on Sunday. The Nets were on a three-game winning streak prior to falling to the Timberwolves. The eventual No. 6 seed is guaranteed a spot in the playoffs while the No. 7 seed will have to earn their way into the postseason via the Play-In Tournament.

They were led by guard Spencer Dinwiddie’s game-high 30 points. Forward Mikal Bridges deposited 24 but shot just 9-24. The Nets and Wolves remained close throughout the entire 48 minutes. There were 24 lead changes and eight ties but Minnesota closed out the final 2:36 of the fourth quarter with a 9-4 advantage after the score was equaled at 98-98 on a 26-foot step-back jumper by Dinwiddie. Forward Karl-Anthony Towns lifted the Timberwolves with 22 points, 14 rebounds, and five assists while guard Anthony Edwards had 23 points. Center Rudy Gobert finished with 12 points, 12 rebounds, and his signature sound defense.

“Yeah, I thought Rudy was really good,” said Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn. “Conversely to the last time we played them, where he pretty much stayed in drop [coverage] and allowed us to make those shots. He kind of switched some of those pick-and-rolls [tonight] and moved his feet a little bit and had some quality contests, which I thought was the difference in some of those looks for Mikal.”

On Monday, Bridges, who has been outstanding for the Nets since they acquired him from the Phoenix Suns in February in the Kevin Durant trade, was named the NBA’s Eastern Conference Player of the Week for games played from Monday, March 27, through Sunday, April 2. During that period, the Nets went 3-0 as Bridges averaged 33 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 1.3 steals in 38.3 minutes per game. It is the 26-year-old Bridges first Player of the Week honor of his five-year career.

The post The Nets urgently try to hold the sixth seed in the East race appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Howard Schultz, the now-former Starbucks CEO, testified in Congress about how the specialty coffee company treats workers who are trying to form a union.

The coffee chains’ workers have been calling for management to bargain with its union reps at Starbucks Workers United (SWU) ever since the first Starbucks location was unionized in Buffalo, NY in 2021. 

SWU now represents workers in 295 Starbucks stores across 37 states, yet management has still not settled on a bargaining agreement.

Shultz had stepped down as Starbucks CEO on March 20, 2023––two weeks earlier than planned. But he had been warned that he might face a subpoena to get him to testify before the senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee about his coffee chain’s treatment of union organizing efforts. He had been asked to sit before the committee by HELP’s chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), who professed his concern about Shultz’ strong anti-union stance at a time when the coffee chain is seeing rapid union organizing among its workers. 

In a written statement before Schultz came to testify, Sanders had pointed out in a committee report that “At Schultz’s direction, Starbucks has fought the attempts of workers every step of the way, resorting to delay tactics and significant escalation in union busting, including unlawfully firing employees, having the police called in response to a peaceful and lawful congregation of workers who were attempting to present their request for union recognition, and illegally shutting down unionized stores.

“Workers in America have the constitutional right to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining to improve their wages and benefits. For far too long, Starbucks and its multi-billionaire owner have acted as though those laws do not apply to them.”

When Schultz sat down for the senate committee hearing on March 29, Sen. Sanders accused him of trying to break the union and of trying to break the spirit of unionized workers:

“Do you understand that in America workers have a fundamental right to join a union and collectively bargain to improve wages, benefits and working conditions? Do you understand that?” Sanders asked.

“I understand and we respect the right of every partner who wears a green apron,” Schultz responded, “whether they choose to join the union or not.”

“Are you aware that NLRB judges have ruled that Starbucks violated federal labor law over 100 times during the past 18 months, far more than any other corporation in America?”

 “Sir,” Schultz replied, “Starbucks Coffee company unequivocally––let me set the tone for this very early on––has not broken the law.” 

Sanders then asked, “Are you aware that on March 1st, 2023, an administrative law judge found Starbucks guilty of ‘egregious and widespread misconduct,’ widespread coercive behavior. And showed ‘a general disregard for the employees’ fundamental rights’ in a union organizing campaign that started in Buffalo, NY in 2021. Are you aware of that?”

“I’m aware that those are allegations and Congress has created a process that we are following and we’re confident that those allegations will be proven false.” 

“Mr. Schultz, before answering the following … questions, let me remind you that federal law at 18 U.S. Code Section 1001 prohibits knowingly and willfully making any fraudulent statement.”

“I understand that,” Schultz stated.

Sen. Sanders then went on to ask Schultz if he had ever taken part in attempts to threaten, coerce, discipline, intimidate, or fire workers who have tried to join a Starbucks union. Schultz assured that, while some people may have interpreted some of his actions as being so, he has never done that. “I’ve had conversations that could have been interpreted in a different way than I intended. That’s up to the person who received the information that I spoke to them about,” he said.

Ultimately, when Sanders asked Schultz point blank if the company could “make a promise to this committee that you will exchange proposals with the union so that we can begin to make meaningful progress?”

Schultz would only state that “On a single store basis, we will continue to negotiate in good faith. That’s what we’ll do.”

Starbucks workers and union representatives were also in attendance and gave testimonies at the hearing.

Starbucks corporate has accused the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) of colluding with SWU to promote union membership. While the NLRB has accused Starbucks of carrying out an anti-union campaign that has included employee surveillance and firings. 

The same day Schultz testified in the senate, some 52% of Starbucks shareholders approved a proposal to have an outside organization conduct a third-party audit of its labor practices and investigate allegations of any anti-union tactics. A coalition of shareholders, including the New York City Retirement Systems (NYCERS) and other pension fund clients, pushed to ensure that Starbucks make a “commitment to workers’ rights, including freedom of association and collective bargaining.”

Also, on the day of Schultz’s senate testimony, two Starbucks workers were fired in Buffalo, NY. Two days later, a Starbucks shift supervisor in Buffalo who had become a prominent union organizer was also fired from her job.

“At Starbucks, it’s time for a change,” Portland, Oregon Starbucks worker Alicia Flores said in an April 3 SWU press statement. “Partners are demanding a voice on the job to improve conditions. Investors are demanding scrutiny of the company’s labor practices. Senators are calling for an end to rampant union-busting. That’s why across the country, we’re calling on the Starbucks board members who lead the direction of this company to turn the page on the union-busting tactics of Howard Schultz, respect partners’ voice through their union and negotiate contracts across the country.”

The post Starbucks’ CEO says he’s all for unions, just not at Starbucks appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here