Top Picks: The Kronos Quartet's 'Ladilikan,' 'Chasing Trane,' and more top picks

The Calendars 5 app will keep track of your busy schedule, PBS's 'American Masters – Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart' delves into the life of the 'A Raisin in the Sun' writer, and more top picks.

Beautiful pairing

No pairing of disparate musical styles with the brave and eclectic Kronos Quartet is ever too far off the reservation. They’ve been making unfettered music, sans borders, for more than four decades, and their latest collaboration, with Malian singer Hawa Diabaté and her Trio Da Kali, titled Ladilikan, is a hypnotic and moving celebration of traditional West African music. “Da Kali” means to keep a pledge, and the Kronos Quartet’s transparent and sympathetic role is touching, allowing the gifted trio’s natural luminosity to shine like the sun.

Hop on the ‘trane’

The documentary Chasing Trane, directed by John Scheinfeld,chronicles the life of the legendary saxophonist and composer John Coltrane and his work with artists including Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. Monitor film critic Peter Rainer calls the movie “terrific,” noting that the film has “stunning concert and music clips throughout.” It’s available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Courtesy of Thomas Dambo

Unique birdhouses

We’re guessing you’ve never seen birdhouses like these. Artist Thomas Dambo has created homes for our feathered friends across the globe, from birdhouses that in fact look like birds which were placed in trees in Horsens, Denmark, to red, white, and blue birdhouses that he put up in the doorway of a building in Copenhagen. Check out his “Happy City Birds” project at thomasdambo.com/happy-city-birds.

Calendar guide

The Calendars 5 app will keep track of your busy schedule, allowing you to add recurring events, easily switch between time periods including day and week, and view the calendar off-line. The app is $6.99 for iOS.

Courtesy of David Attie

’Sun’ story

Many theater aficionados know the play “A Raisin in the Sun” but are probably less aware of the background of Lorraine Hansberry, the woman who penned the play. A new PBS program, American Masters – Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, delves into Hansberry’s life story and how her play influenced theater in the United States. Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier, among many others, offer tributes. It is now streaming on pbs.org and on PBS apps.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Top Picks: The Kronos Quartet's 'Ladilikan,' 'Chasing Trane,' and more top picks
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2018/0202/Top-Picks-The-Kronos-Quartet-s-Ladilikan-Chasing-Trane-and-more-top-picks
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe