Anthem

• What baggage does any music acquire when it shifts from being – in South African literature scholar Zoë Wicomb’s phrase – “national culture to official culture”?
• South Africa’s national anthem is a composite of the African liberation hymn Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika and the apartheid-era Afrikaans hymn Die Stem (The Call of South Africa).
• In recent work, two prominent contemporary composers, Philip Miller in South Africa and Amit Chaudhuri in India, have explored fresh ways of interpreting national anthems.

Phillip Miller

• Miller grew up during apartheid with the enforced singing of Die Stem at school.
• In an interview with me he recalls:
  Coming from a very liberal home instilled almost a horror of national anthems in me.
• Miller and co-composer Thuthuka Sibisi had explored the meaning of singing South Africa’s former colonial anthem, God Save the King, for Victorian-era African choristers in an earlier project.
• And even the postcolonial South African anthem Miller finds so beautiful can jar with some.

Amit Chaudhuri

• It was composed by poet, artist and thinker Rabindranath Tagore in 1911.
• Chaudhuri, a novelist, critic and classically trained Hindustani singer, reimagines Jana Gana Mana on his most recent album, Across the Universe.
• Chaudhuri told me in email correspondence he is treating Tagore’s composition as a piece of music.

Burden of history

• Miller isn’t sure it’s possible to shear away the baggage from music, however beautiful, once it’s been appropriated to power.
• He points out that before Nkosi Sikelele was adopted, the ANC anthem was South African composer Reuben Caluza’s iLand Act.
• Anthems, it seems, are what a country’s rulers, peoples – and artists – make them.

• PHOENIX, May 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Honeywell (NASDAQ: HON) has successfully completed the first flight of its Honeywell Anthem integrated flight deck using Honeywell's Pilatus PC-12 test aircraft.
• Although Honeywell Anthem has been in flight test for more than a year and has accumulated more than 120 hours of flight time, this flight was the first managed by the next-generation avionics.
• The PC-12 aircraft was flown using Honeywell Anthem's fully integrated flight deck, which includes the display system and processing platform.
• The PC-12 test aircraft with Honeywell Anthem's integrated flight deck will be showcased at AirVenture 2023 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, July 24-30.

• Curative Insurance Company , a pioneering provider of a cutting-edge, no copay, no deductible health plan, is pleased to announce the appointment of Patrick Sturdivant to the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO).
• “Curative is excited to bring Patrick on board as our new COO, as he is truly an innovative leader in the health care and insurance industry,” said Fred Turner, CEO and co-founder of Curative.
• The Curative health plan is now available to employers throughout Texas and their employees nationally, with broad national network coverage and access to over 1 million providers nationwide.
• The Curative plan will soon be available to employers in other states across the country.

• A continuation of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia’s commitment to addressing access to healthy food and nutrition education for the Atlanta community, Anthem and iHeartMedia joined national nonprofit Common Threads for a week of programming at College Park Elementary School.
• View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230421005384/en/
  Students at College Park Elementary School show off their newly attained cooking skills for Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia volunteers and President Robert Bunch.
• Attendees included Robert Bunch, President, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, Spencer Bynes, iHeartMedia Metro President Atlanta, and Stephanie Folkens, Common Threads Vice President of Programming.
• Common Threads and Anthem programs include:
  - Small Bites – A healthy snacks hands-on Common Threads program that helps students connect core academic subjects such as science, math, and language arts to food and nutrition.