Curtain Call

4 A's worth sharing this week: check-in with Chloe Borthwick, 20 years of Mean Girls, a new vocal ensemble Lyyra, new music, and more.

Here are four things (A’s) I thought were worth sharing this week:

A1. Subscribe to the Foray YouTube channel and check in with Chloe Borthwick this week.

A2. The Mean Girls cast talks navigating the 2024 musical-movie: it’s “a fresh take on such a beloved tale.” In a Behind The Scenes YouTube video, Tina Fey talks about the long shelf life Mean Girls has had (since 2004), Reneé Rapp talks about the “incredibly high standard already on the project,” and Auli’i Cravalho (who also voiced Disney’s Moana!) says Tina Fey suggested changing character Janet’s last name to reflect Cravalho’s Hawaiian background.

A3. The VOCES8 Foundation launches an upper-voice ensemble, Lyyra. “Comprised of 6 incredible women, Lyyra pushes the boundaries of what is possible with treble choral, jazz, pop, and folk music.” Check out their Instagram and their website. Consider donating and spreading the word, as The VOCES8 Foundation hopes to actualize their vision for the ensemble by “offering them full-time positions and a robust concert and education schedule.” 

A4. New music this week: In anticipation of her seventh studio album, “Eternal Sunshine,” Ariana Grande drops the lead single and its music video: “yes, and?” (Spotify / Apple Music). Peter Eldridge and Emily Sangder collaborate on a gorgeous cover of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” (Spotify / Apple Music). Their take brings the song into a more folk-inspired style, with strings, guitar, piano built into the arrangement — “‘a reinvention if you will,” says Peter. Keyon Harrold just released an album entitled Foreverland, his lead single being “Beautiful Day [Feat. PJ Morton],” which is paired with “Foreverland [Feat. Laura Mvula]” and “Find Your Peace [Feat. Common, Robert Glasper, Jean Baylor]” (Spotify / Apple Music). The music is rooted in jazz and R&B as Harrold collaborates with other musicians to make something unique and transcendent.

Boopy shloopy, you know what I mean?
Amy

Coda: Dafnis Prieto brings wisdom and perspective everywhere he goes. His Instagram often holds thought-provoking posts — a recent post shares a chapter from his book, “A World of Rhythmic Possibilities” about tradition. Dafnis writes, “As important as it is to perpetuate and preserve tradition, it is also important to accept evolution and innovation as a part of tradition. It is an inevitable duality — preservation versus evolution.”

This reminds me of when my dad speaks about the concept “include and transcend” with Arthur Koestler in mind: “Arthur Koestler coined the term ‘holon’ to refer to an entity that is itself a whole and simultaneously a part of some other whole. And if you start to look closely at the things and processes that actually exist, it soon becomes obvious that they are not merely wholes, they are also parts of something else. They are whole/parts, they are holons.” (Kyle Kowalski quoting Ken Wilbur). The coolest part? All of the holons are called a “holarchy,” and holarchies occur naturally in nature. That is pretty deep. 

Have you checked out our podcast yet? It’s streaming everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast. 😎