music

Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti created Afrobeat, a hard-driving African funk sound, in the 1970s. It absorbed genres like benga and jùjú, and groups such as Orchestra Baobab made it a success outside Africa. Fela! is now a hit show in New York.

Using the word "naught", which means "nothing" or "zero", one group ran a campaign to popularize "the Naughties" as the old decade's name, but without much success. Other proposed names include "the Nils" and "Nillies", from "nil", meaning "nothing".

It's late on a December evening. The dark clouds are full of rain. Suddenly, the sun appears in the west. An unusual pink light appears over Ballyhoura Country, and the landscape is covered in shades of green one cannot find anywhere else in the world. That's Ireland.

To accompany Claudia Hellman's article "Shop and save in New York City" in the January issue of Spotlight, we've prepared an online Big Apple experience that uses video, old and new, to convey the magic, myth and drama of this extraordinary place.

The English National Opera is staging a modern interpretation of Handel's 18th-century masterpiece. Avant-garde director Deborah Warner takes the religious oratorio and gives one of the world's greatest stories powerful new relevance.

Simon Boswell, Stefano Mainetti and Nour Eddine were asked to write a soundtrack around three elements: Gregorian chant sung by the Choir of the Philharmonic Academy of Rome, London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the voice of Pope Benedict XVI.