Alan Bush (22 December 1900 – 31 October 1995) was a British
composer, pianist, teacher and political activist. From a prosperous
middle-class background, Bush enjoyed considerable success as a student
at the Royal Academy of Music in the early 1920s. Many of his early
works took the form of settings for pageants and workers' songs and
choruses. In his maturer years he wrote symphonies, operas and other
large-scale works, which found greater acceptance in Eastern Europe
than at home, in part because of his lifelong communist convictions. In
his prewar works, Bush's music retained an essential Englishness, but
was also influenced by the avant-garde European idioms of the period.
Later he sought to simplify this style, in line with his Marxist-
inspired belief that music should be widely accessible. Bush taught
composition at the Academy for more than 50 years and was the founder
and president of the Workers' Music Association.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bush>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1807:
In an effort to avoid engaging in the Napoleonic Wars, the
United States Congress passed the Embargo Act, forbidding American ships
from engaging in trade with foreign nations.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embargo_Act_of_1807>
1968:
Cultural Revolution: The People's Daily published a piece by
Mao Zedong directing that "the intellectual youth must go to the
country, and will be educated from living in rural poverty."
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent-down_youth>
1988:
Brazilian unionist and environmental activist Chico Mendes was
murdered at his Xapuri home.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Mendes>
2008:
A dike ruptured at a waste containment area in Roane County,
Tennessee, U.S., releasing 1.1 billion US gallons (4,200,000 m3) of
coal fly ash slurry into local waterways.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
oneiromancy:
1. (uncountable, divination) Divination by the interpretation of dreams.
2. (uncountable, in a weak sense) The interpretation of dreams.
3. (countable, divination) An act of such divination or dream-
interpretation.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oneiromancy>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Today we hear a great deal about Organizational Men, Mass
Culture, Conformity, the Lonely Crowd, the Power Elite and its
Conspiracy of Mediocrity. We forget that the very volume of this
criticism is an indication that our society is still radically
pluralistic.
--Kenneth Rexroth
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kenneth_Rexroth>