Beethoven's Daily Routine: 5 Practices That Helped Make Him a Musical Titan
In the list of the greatest musical geniuses of all time, the German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven takes a high place, if not the highest. With his innovative and poignant symphonies, sonatas, and quartets, Beethoven played a pivotal role in Western music's transition from the Classical to Romantic ages.
Not only did Beethoven widen the scope of what was possible in music—he did it while battling against growing deafness, even composing some of his greatest works after his hearing was gone. And he accomplished all this as history's
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Epoch Times
6 hours ago
- Epoch Times
Beethoven's Daily Routine: 5 Practices That Helped Make Him a Musical Titan
In the list of the greatest musical geniuses of all time, the German composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven takes a high place, if not the highest. With his innovative and poignant symphonies, sonatas, and quartets, Beethoven played a pivotal role in Western music's transition from the Classical to Romantic ages. Not only did Beethoven widen the scope of what was possible in music—he did it while battling against growing deafness, even composing some of his greatest works after his hearing was gone. And he accomplished all this as history's
Indianapolis Star
8 hours ago
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Plays based on little-known history populate Phoenix Theatre's 2025-26 season
The Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre will have a big start to its 2025-26 season: It will produce "The Rocket Men" by Crystal Skillman. Based on a true story, the play explores the German engineers and scientists who worked for Nazi Germany before moving to North Alabama to work on NASA's rocketry program, helping U.S. astronauts fly to the moon. Performed by an all-female cast, "The Rocket Men" will offer a fresh perspective on scientific exploration and moral responsibility. The work is set to be a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere, and its run will begin in September at the Phoenix. The network is a group of professional theaters that collaborate to support development and sustainability of new plays. "We've been working with Crystal for the past year to launch The Rocket Men: Zoom readings with local actors, live readings in New York, workshopping, lots of rewriting, reshaping to land on target," Phoenix Artistic Director Constance Macy said in a news release. "I love it because it exposes hidden history told through women's voices, resonates in a profoundly modern way, and is grandly theatrical." The rest of the Phoenix Theater's season will include more plays produced by the theater itself as well as those presented by American Lives Theatre, Indianapolis Shakespeare Co. and Summit Performance Indianapolis. A Halloween storytelling event and dance concerts also will grace the stage. Here's the season schedule. Find tickets and more information at This Indy newsletter has the best shows, art and eats
USA Today
21 hours ago
- USA Today
Jano Rassoul: An Actor Redefining Identity in Every Role
In an industry where actors spend years crafting a singular "brand," Jano Rassoul has built his career on the impossibility of being pinned down. The 24-year-old Portuguese-German actor moves naturally between cultures, languages, and identities, drawing on experiences that began in childhood. "I can unsettle easily and love moving around," Rassoul says while calling New York home after a lifetime of geographic restlessness. "The excitement of new people and new adventures keeps me going." It's not wanderlust driving him, but something deeper: a fundamental understanding that identity itself is a performance, refined through repetition across borders. His journey began conventionally—as a nine-year-old landing a role on the Portuguese sitcom A Família Mata. But between that early success and his current work developing vertical content for TikTok-addicted audiences, Rassoul lived what amounts to several lifetimes: four countries in six years. South Africa, Switzerland, the UAE, Portugal—a list that reads less like biography than diplomatic itinerary. "I learned how to understand people and myself well," he reflects, transforming what could have been instability into artistic advantage. Where others might see displacement, Rassoul found a masterclass in human observation. The stories that shaped him predate his own journey. His father, a German-born Kurd who was raised in Syria, came of age during a period of national unrest—a situation that eventually led his family to seek a new home. His Angolan mother shares stories shaped by the country's complex history. "These are stories I want to explore," Rassoul said. "My grandfather eventually moved the entire family from Syria to Germany. My mother's tales would also be something I'd like to explore." This multigenerational saga informs every role, from A Família Mata to recent projects like Final Turn, Feel, and even an appearance on Querida Júlia talk show in his youth. "I've worked on projects that touched on immigration stories from Portugal's Salazar era," he explains. "It brought me close to the pain my parents have faced because they very much have had to run from their homes." The transition to New York's competitive landscape might have overwhelmed a less adaptable performer. But Rassoul approached the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute with characteristic openness. Under George Loros and through a masterclass with Vincent D'Onofrio, he dove into method acting—a practice demanding actors mine their own experiences for emotional truth. "When working on deeply personal material, it touches on family dynamics and reminds me a lot of my relationship with my father," he admits. "It always hurts to explore those themes." Yet he resists self-indulgence: "I release the emotion fully and then try breathing exercises I learned in Tai Chi to center myself." This flexibility serves him well in an entertainment landscape undergoing its own identity crisis. While pursuing film and television opportunities, he's exploring new narrative forms: comedy designed for vertical viewing. "A lot of these projects have shallow writing," he acknowledges. "I try to focus on relatable, believable circumstances—something with a creative layer but not so much that you instantly want to scroll away." His recent Babbel work offered another hybrid form—part performance, part education, part marketing. The challenge of creating meaning within constraints might seem antithetical to Strasberg's deep character work, but Rassoul sees continuity: both require understanding your audience, adapting to constraints, finding truth within artificial structures. "People try to put you in boxes, of course," he says, addressing the industry's perpetual challenge for actors who don't fit neat categories. His mixed heritage—Kurdish, German, Portuguese, Angolan—defies Hollywood's reductive casting logic. "Different people look at me differently, and I embrace all aspects of myself." This embrace of multiplicity extends beyond a survival strategy. In an era when authenticity has become a marketing buzzword, Rassoul offers something more complex: the understanding that all identity is performed, that authenticity itself might be the most elaborate performance of all. "If I had to say, it would be Cape Town," he offers when asked about home, before immediately qualifying: "I've never felt so welcomed and at home. Portugal can come in as a close second." But even this comes with implicit understanding that home might be less a place than a quality of connection. As Hollywood grapples with representation and authentic storytelling, Rassoul embodies a different possibility: identity as active construction rather than passive inheritance. He uses his family's immigrant roots without letting it limit his dramatic range. "I don't feel tied to anything or anywhere," he says, and in his voice, it sounds like freedom rather than loss. In an industry that often demands actors choose a lane, Rassoul has made a career of changing lanes—bringing to each role the accumulated wisdom of someone who understands that identity, like acting itself, is an ongoing negotiation between what is and what might be.
