Cytoplasmic RNA sensors and their interplay with RNA-binding partners in innate antiviral response: Theme and variations

Sensing of pathogen-associated molecular patterns including viral RNA by innate immunity represents the first line of defense against viral infection. In addition to RIG-I-like receptors and NOD-like receptors, several other RNA sensors are known to mediate innate antiviral response in the cytoplasm. Double-stranded RNA-binding protein PACT interacts with prototypic RNA sensor RIG-I to facilitate its recognition of viral RNA and induction of host interferon response, but variations of this theme are seen when the functions of RNA sensors are modulated by other RNA-binding proteins to impinge on antiviral defense, proinflammatory cytokine production and cell death programs. Their discrete and coordinated actions are crucial to protect the host from infection. In this review, we will focus on cytoplasmic RNA sensors with an emphasis on their interplay with RNA-binding partners. Classical sensors such as RIG-I will be briefly reviewed. More attention will be brought to the new insights on how RNA-binding partners of RNA sensors modulate innate RNA sensing and how viruses perturb the functions of RNA-binding partners.

Theme and Variations on a Virtue: Humility as a Multidimensional Construct for Musicians and Music Educators

Humility is an important social virtue for musicians as they expose their own egos in the pursuit of artistic self-expression. Research findings have confirmed that humility is an important virtue of strength that lends itself meaningfully to prosocial and ethical interactions among musicians and music educators. In this article, I synthesize research on various forms of humility that emerge from unique social situations in which musicians and music educators might find themselves. In actively seeking to develop their own humility, musicians may relinquish their egotistic self-interest in favor of more meaningful and productive music experiences to be shared by all.

Georg Ruzitska: Introduction et Variations brillantes sur un thème hongrois, op. 14

In 2019 we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the death of Transylvanian composer, Georg Ruzitska. Living a long 83 years, he experienced the transition from the Classial to Romantic eras. This period’s myriad historic and artistic developments influenced Ruzitska’s music, inspiring the migrant composer’s composition of the Introduction et variations brillantes sur un tême hongrois op. 14. The work is one of Ruzitska's four unedited, unpublished cello pieces that lay in the form manuscript on the shelves of the Széchenyi Library in Budapest. This interesting musical piece is written for cello and piano in the form of theme and variations and represents many elements of the “verbunkos” style, the contemporary national Hungarian musical idiom. This paper seeks to provide a detailed description of the work, with an emphasis on highlighting the above-mentioned stylistic elements.

Performers, Structure, and Ways of Knowing

This opening chapter presents the book’s overarching project: the illumination of relations between analysis and performance through theorist-performer collaborations on twentieth-century works. The project is set in the context of two distinct though overlapping disciplines: the tradition of relating analysis and performance within the field of music theory, and the field of musical performance studies. Musical structure, on which the book focuses, is broadly defined as relations among parts and whole, emerging through interactions of objective materials and subjective agency. Ways of knowing that arise in the course of relating analysis and performance are encapsulated by wissen (knowing that), können (knowing how), and kennen (knowing, as in knowing a person). The book’s title and form (a theme and variations) are briefly described. Two rehearsal vignettes (from Crumb’s Four Nocturnes for violin and piano and Shende’s Throw Down or Shut Up!), the first accompanied by a performance video, frame the chapter.

The Terminology of Borrowing

This article specifically addresses electroacoustic music compositions that borrow from existing musical and sound resources. Investigating works that borrow and thrive upon existing sound sources presents an array of issues regarding terminology, authorship and creativity. Embedding borrowed elements into new electroacoustic music goes beyond the simplicity of ‘cut and paste’ as composers approach this practice with new and novel techniques. Musical borrowings have been widely studied in fields of popular and classical music, from cover songs to quotations and from pastiches to theme and variations; however, borrowings that take place within the field of electroacoustic music can be less clear or defined, and demand a closer look. Because the components and building blocks of electroacoustic music are often recorded sound, the categories of borrowing become vast; thus incidences of borrowing, in some shape or form, can appear inevitable or unavoidable when composing. The author takes on this issue and proposes a new framework for categorising borrowings as a helpful aid for others looking to sample in new compositional work, as well as for further musicological study. The article will consider the compositional process of integration and reworking of borrowed material, using a repertoire study to showcase the variety of techniques in play when sound materials change hands, composer to composer. Terminology already in use by others to describe sound borrowing in electroacoustic music will be investigated in an effort to show the multitude of considerations and components in action when borrowing takes place. Motivations for borrowing, borrowing types, borrowing durations, copying as imitation, and composers’ reflections upon borrowing will all be considered within the article, along with discussions on programmatic development and embedding techniques. At the heart of this article, the author aims to show how widespread and pervasive borrowing is within the electroacoustic repertoire by drawing attention to varieties of sound transplants, all considered as acts of borrowing.