Musical Leadership and Societal Transformation: Inspiration and Courage in Action

Music is a form of leadership. Music-based interventions in organizations and society are being used throughout the world, including in situations of extreme conflict and consequence. Artists are going beyond the dehydrated language of economics, politics, and war to achieve goals that have eluded those using more traditional approaches. This article presents musical interventions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Northern Ireland, the Middle East, South Africa, the United States, and Venezuela, in which musicians have had the inspiration and courage to make a difference.T=The radical shift in the structure of the world begs for creativity; it asks us to rethink who we are as human beings… It may be that writers, painters, and musicians have an unprecedented opportunity to be co-creators with society’s leaders in setting a path. For art, after all, is about rearranging us, creating surprising juxtapositions, emotional openings, startling presences, flight paths to the eternal. —Rosamund and Benjamin Zander (1998, p. 7)2Art transforms apathy into action.3 Social scientist Ken Gergen (1999) invites us all to become “poetic activists” (p. 12). Perhaps there is no better label for the use of musical interventions in global and organizational crises than that of poetic activism. Activists, great artists, and great leaders share three fundamental perspectives (Adler, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2015). They all demonstrate the courage to see reality the way it is. They all exhibit the courage to imagine possibility—positivefutures—even when the world labels such imagination as naïve for daring to express optimism. And they all have the courage to inspire people to move from current reality back to possibility.Over the past half-century, with no singular organized movement or unifying philosophy to guide them, artists and artistic processes have attempted to transform reality in numerous contentious situations. In particular, music has been used to address extreme conflict and the threat of conflict, along with the dysfunction and degradation that conflict so often causes (see Tongeren, 1999; Urbain, 2008; Ippolito, 2008).4 Music, most often when combined with other approaches, appears to have produced generative outcomes in some, although not all, situations in which it has been introduced. In many circumstances, musical interventions have inspired the broader community (see Tongeren, 1999; Welch & LeBaron, 2006; Ippolito, 2008; Cohen, Gutiérrez Varea, & Walker, 2011). Such initiatives exemplify the frame-breaking perspectives and approaches that music has the potential to offer

Parent Interaction In Primetime Family Themed Television Portrayals: A Replication And Extension Of Dail And Way\u27s (1985) Content Analysis

This research is a replication and extension of Dail and Way’s (1985) content analysis identifying parent interactions portrayed in family oriented prime time network television programs. Family structure, parent role, child rearing, and child responses were coded from five episodes each of eight different programs from 2014-2015 television season. The programs presented parent roles more often than child rearing, while mothers were found in child rearing more often than fathers. Traditional family structures were most prevalent with fewer single parent households and a new presence of same-sex parents. Mothers and fathers were still portrayed stereotypically, but children’s responses were more realistic and further reinforced traditional gender roles. Child responses reinforced traditional and rejected non-traditional parent interactions according to the parents’ sex, partnership, and occupation

Control of Penicillium expansum by an epiphytic basidiomycetous yeast

Postharvest biocontrol agents are considered a viable alternative to the use of synthetic chemicals as demonstrated by extensive research conducted by scientists and companies worldwide. In the present investigation, the biocontrol potential of a carotenoid-producing basidiomycetous yeast isolated from table grape flowers was analyzed. The strain RY1 proved to be Sporobolomyces roseus. In vitro and in vivo tests were conducted to assess its efficacy against Penicillium expansum, one of the most important postharvest pathogens and producer of the mycotoxin patulin. The yeast proved to control both fungal growth and patulin production, and, in addition, to greatly affect disease incidence and severity on apples. Its mode of action is presumably related both to the competition for nutrients and the production of antifungal volatiles. As such, although further large-scale trials are needed, our S. roseus strain represents a potential interesting biocontrol agent to be applied after harvest

Self-consistent evaluation of quark masses in three flavor crystalline color superconductivity

We present a self-consistent evaluation of the constituent quark masses in the three flavor Larkin-Ovchinnikov-Fulde-Ferrell (LOFF) phases of QCD, employing an improved Nambu-Jona Lasinio model. This result allows to determine the window for values of the baryonic chemical potential where the LOFF state is energetically favored.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, JHEP3 style. A second treatment of the ultraviolet cutoff added. Three figures adapted to the new cutoff. Two references added. Version accepted for publication on JHE