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Kirill Gerstein is the sixth recipient the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award, presented every four years to an exceptional pianist who, regardless of age or nationality, possesses broad and profound musicianship and charisma. Born in southwestern Russia, Gerstein studied piano at a special music school for gifted children and came to the United States at 14 as the youngest student ever to attend Boston’s Berklee College of Music. He now divides his time between the United States and Germany, where he has been a professor of piano at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart since 2006. 

George Ritzer is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland.  His books have been translated into over twenty languages, with over a dozen translations of The McDonaldization of Society alone. He has chaired four Sections of the American Sociological Association, was founding editor of the Journal of Consumer Culture and edited the eleven-volume Encyclopedia of Sociology , the two-volume Encyclopedia of Social Theory and the five-volume Encyclopedia of Globalization. 

Alison Brooks’ belief in the transformative social role of architecture underlies a commitment to housing and urban design. Canadian-born Brooks is the only UK architect to have won all three of the UK’s most prestigious awards for architecture: the Stephen Lawrence Prize, the Manser Medal and the RIBA Stirling Prize. Her largest civic commission to date is a full academic and residential Quadrangle for Exeter College, Oxford. Currently under construction, this will be the first Oxford College to be designed by a female architect.

Alison Brooks suggest that it’s time we took thorium-based power generation seriously.  Over the last half-a-century, there have been a number of attempts to use thorium as an alternative nuclear fuel but all have been abandoned, partly because of technical obstacles, partly because of the nuclear arms race which needed other nuclear materials. But with over a dozen countries now looking seriously at thorium again, perhaps its time has finally come? 

The last time I was in England I happened to visit a supermarket with my cousin to do a bit of  household shopping. As I wandered around I saw that many of the products were the same brands and packaging that I would find at home. I found it disconcerting rather than reassuring that on even at that mundane level on opposite sides of the Atlantic the store appeared so much the same. It seems to me that while a degree of uniformity can be pleasing or helpful under certain circumstances, too much is not a good thing. In nature we know that diversity is a strength, that monoculture leads to many problems.  I believe that the globalisation of the consumer economy is going to lead to a diminution of ideas and variety for the most common of consumer products and food. While this may in many ways be convenient, particularly for the corporations that produce and deliver, it will lead to more devastation of the planet as land is cleared for more monocultures such as the almond groves of the United States. The disease that is attacking the most common banana. The diseases and pesticides that are killing our pollinating insects. The increasing number of food allergies that are appearing. I know that I don't have conclusive evidence for all these beliefs but I have some and I observe those changes over my lifetime and I find many things to worry about when I think of the future faced by my children and grandchildren especially when I see the willful denial of the need to change our ways by those in power in this country and even more when I look south of the border and see the influence of the energy billionaires who act on the environment like cancers.

Caroline Knowles, Canada