The New Yorker May 16, 2022

Raffi Khatchadourian (“Light and Shadow,” p. 34) has been a staff writer since 2008. Ludmila Khersonsky (Poem, p. 53) is a Ukrainian poet and translator. Her collection “The Country Where Everyone’s Name Is Fear,” which she co-authored with Boris Khersonsky, came out in English last month. Stephen Witt (“Weapon of Influence,” p. 22) published “How Music Got Free” in 2015. Emily Flake (Comic Strip, p. 57) is a New Yorker cartoonist. Her books include “Mama Tried” and “That Was Awkward.” Frank Viva (Cover), an illustrator and a graphic designer, has contributed to the magazine since 2010. His books for children include “Young Frank, Architect” and “Sea Change.” Maggie Doherty (Books, p. 74) is the author of “The Equivalents.” She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Rivka Galchen (“The Grothendieck Mystery,” p. 28), a staff writer, is the author…

ADDRESSING CHILD SUICIDE As a mental-health professional, I found Andrew Solomon’s piece heartbreakingly accurate in its portrayal of the impact on families when a child dies by suicide (“The Unthinkable,” April 11th). I hope that readers will not conclude, based on the stark illustration of the hopelessness and frustration that the featured families experienced, that nothing can be done to alter a child’s trajectory. Professional mental-health-care providers have succeeded in guiding children away from suicide and self-harm through a continuum of services—from hospital-based crisis intervention to school-based and community outpatient programs to innovations like my organization’s TeenCentral.com therapeutic-support Web site. In the past, such efforts had to combat the stigma surrounding mental-health issues, but, ironically, the clear emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on kids has helped to break down that…

MAY 11 – 17, 2022 Guadalupe Maravilla titled his show at the Brooklyn Museum (on view through Sept. 18) “Tierra Blanca Joven,” after the catastrophic volcanic eruption that displaced his Mayan ancestors in the fifth century. As a child in the nineteen-eighties, Maravilla, too, was forced from his home, fleeing the violence of the civil war in El Salvador. After surviving cancer, several years ago, the New York-based artist became a sound healer, and his sculptures incorporate ritual gongs, which can be heard at the museum in related audio pieces. MUSIC Tori Amos POP ROCK With the release of her landmark début, “Little Earthquakes,” Tori Amos became a luminary of the nineties feminist singer-songwriter movement, and her high-wire piano rock has lost none of its potency since. A formative inspiration to younger generations of…

This summer’s classical performances reflect a pandemic reset that feels more than temporary. Lincoln Center has collapsed all of its seasonal programs and series into a single initiative, Summer for the City (May 14-Aug. 14). The festival embraces diversity, with free events that include a Pride-themed Mini Kiki Ball (June 24) and a Juneteenth celebration (June 19). The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, survivors of the reorganization, plays six different programs, featuring Henri Vieuxtemps’s highly embroidered Violin Concerto No. 5, with Joshua Bell (Aug. 2-3), and Mozart’s Requiem (Aug. 5-6). The Metropolitan Opera’s season, typically finished in May, runs into June, with Brett Dean’s “Hamlet” (May 13-June 9). Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Met orchestra in back-to-back concerts, at Carnegie Hall—Act I of Wagner’s “Die Walküre” (June 15) and an all-Berlioz program (June…

The summer’s contemporary-music calendar is bustling, as spring postponements find fresh dates and as new events from anxious performers continue to spring up. Soothing sounds waft across town. The singer-songwriter Tomberlin sets up at Music Hall of Williamsburg, débuting songs from her new album, “i don’t know who needs to hear this…” (June 10). Following the mellow pandemic release “What We Drew,” the house d.j., singer, and producer Yaeji plays her subtle dance tracks at Brooklyn Steel (June 19). At Webster Hall, delicate music emanates across the stage, with the beaming sunshine soul of Corinne Bailey Rae (June 24) and the ethereal dream-pop electronics of Purity Ring (June 25). At Kings Theatre, the Baltimore band Beach House runs through a lush, hypnotic catalogue (July 19-20). The calm is disrupted by a string…

At forty-four, the writer and performer Danai Gurira has had an unusually broad career. In 2005, she and Nikkole Salter débuted their two-woman play, “In the Continuum,” about the toll of the AIDS crisis on Black women in Africa and the U.S., and in 2016 Lupita Nyong’o starred in a Broadway production of Gurira’s play “Eclipsed,” set during the Second Liberian Civil War. Meanwhile, Gurira broke out as an actress in AMC’s zombie-apocalypse series “The Walking Dead” and joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in “Black Panther,” as the Wakandan warrior Okoye. This summer, she adds to her unique résumé a turn as one of Shakespeare’s most malevolent men. At the Public Theatre’s free Shakespeare in the Park, Gurira stars in “Richard III” (starting previews on June 17, at the Delacorte),…