NEW YORK (AP) — When Grammy-award winner Jon Batiste was a kid, say, 9 or 10 years old, he moved between musical worlds — participating in local, classical piano competitions by day, then “gigging in night haunts in the heart of New Orleans.”

Free from the rigidity of genre, but also a dedicated student of it, his tastes wove into one another. He’d find himself transforming canonized classical works into blues or gospel songs, injecting them with the style-agnostic soulfulness he’s become known for. On Nov. 15, Batiste will release his first ever album of solo piano work, a collection of similar compositions.

Titled “Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1),” across 11 tracks, Batiste collaborates, in a way, with Beethoven, reimagining the German pianist’s instantly recognizable works into something fluid, extending across musical histories. Kicking off with the lead single “Für Elise-Batiste,” with its simple intro known the world over as one of the first pieces of music beginners learn on piano, he morphs the song into ebullient blues.

“My private practice has always been kind of in reverence to, of course, but also to demystify the mythology around these composers,” he told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of Wednesday’s album release announcement.

The album was written through a process called “spontaneous composition,” which he views as a lost art in classical music. It’s extemporization; Batiste sits at the piano and interpolates Beethoven’s masterpieces to make them his own.

“The approach is to think about, if I were both in conversation with Beethoven, but also if Beethoven himself were here today, and he was sitting at the piano, what would the approach be?” he explained. “And blending both, you know, my approach to artistry and creativity and what my imagined approach of how a contemporary Beethoven would approach these works.”

There is a division, he said, in a popular understanding of music where “pristine and preserved and European” genres are viewed as more valuable than “something that’s Black and sweaty and improvisational.” This album, like most of his work, disrupts the assumption.

Contrary to what many might think, Batiste said that Beethoven’s rhythms are African. “On a basic technical level, he’s doing the thing that African music ingenuity brought to the world, which is he’s playing in both a two meter and a three meter at once, almost all the time. He’s playing in two different time signatures at once, almost exclusively,” he said.

“When you hear a drum circle, you know, the African diasporic tradition of playing in time together, you’re hearing multiple different meters happening at once,” he continued. “In general, he’s layering all of the practice of classical music and symphonic music with this deeply African rhythmic practice, so it’s sophisticated.”

“Beethoven Blues” honors that complexity. “I’m deeply repelled by the classism and the culture system that we’ve set up that degrades some and elevates others. And ultimately the main thing that I’m drawn in by is how excellence transcends race,” he said.

When these songs are performed live, given their spontaneous nature, they will never sound exactly like they do on record, and no two sets will be the same. “If you were to come and see me perform these works 10 times in a row, you’d hear not only a new version of Beethoven, but you would also get a completely new concert of Beethoven,” he said.

“Beethoven Blues” is the first in a piano series — just how many will there be, and over what time frame, and what they will look like? Well, he’s keeping his options open.

“The themes of the piano series are going to be based on, you know, whatever is timely for me in that moment of my development, whatever I’m exploring in terms of my artistry. It could be another series based on a composer,” he said.

“Or it could be something completely different.”

A British doctor pleaded guilty Monday for the attempted murder of his mother’s partner by disguising himself as a nurse to inject the victim with poison but telling the victim it was a COVID-19 vaccine.

Thomas Kwan, 53, sported a wig, facial hair and medical mask when he administered the fake COVID vaccine to Patrick O’Hara on Jan. 22 in Newcastle, located in northern England, more than three hours north of London.

Northumbria police said Kwan arranged a fake medical appointment with O’Hara by sending him bogus letters stating that he needed a COVID vaccination, according to Reuters. 

The police said Kwan wore a disguise so that neither his mother nor O’Hara, who are both in their 70s, would recognize him.  They believed that he was merely a nurse. 

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O’Hara developed a skin condition around the injection area and became “seriously unwell” just hours after it was injected, police said. O’Hara visited his general practitioner and was immediately admitted to the hospital. Upon his arrival, he showed hospital staff letters of his injection, which they deemed fake.

He underwent skin grafts to repair “extensive damage the poisoning caused to his body” and was left with “life-changing injuries,” according to police. The skin condition is a fatal flesh-eating bacterial infection called necrotizing fasciitis. The British Crown Prosecution Service said O’Hara was injected with “an as-yet unconfirmed toxin.”

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Police say that Kwan installed fake license plates on his vehicle before driving to O’Hara’s home, where the poisonous injection took place. Prosecutor Peter Makepeace said that Kwan’s motive likely regarded his mother’s will, which states that her partner would receive her home should she die and that O’Hara was still alive.

When police searched Kwan’s home, they found files on his computer that contained downloads of a “poisoner’s handbook” and other files related to using poisons to kill a person.

“Mr. Kwan used his encyclopedic knowledge of, and research into, poisons to carry out his plan,” Makepeace told jurors on the first day of the trial.

Kwan was charged with attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Although he initially pleaded not guilty, he pleaded guilty Monday to the attempted murder charge.

A man with handcuffs on  (Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson)

His sentencing will be held at a later date, and he remains in custody.

“The weight of evidence faced by Kwan was overwhelming and he has now admitted (to) attempted murder,” Detective Chief Inspector Jason Henry, of Northumbria Police, said. “While nothing can change the impact of Kwan’s actions on his victim, we do hope the fact he has been brought to justice will help them move on with their life.”

Boys and girls driven by hunger into gangs face abuse and forced into criminal activities, Human Rights Watch warns.

Haiti’s powerful armed groups are increasingly recruiting children into their ranks amid a growing humanitarian crisis, a global human rights watchdog has warned, with girls sexually abused and forced into domestic work.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of children “driven by hunger and poverty” have in recent months joined gangs and were forced to commit criminal acts ranging from extortion and looting to killing and kidnapping, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report published on Wednesday.

Boys are often used as informants, trained to use weapons and ammunition, and deployed in clashes against the police, the report said.

One of the boys interviewed, 14-year-old Michel, said he had joined a gang when he was eight. “I didn’t have parents and lived on the street,” he told HRW.

“I usually ran errands or participated in roadblocks. There were four other kids in the group, 13 or 11 years old.”

Haiti has been rocked by escalating violence since February when gangs launched attacks on prisons and other state institutions across the capital, Port-au-Prince. The unrest spread to other parts of the Caribbean nation and has displaced more than 700,000 people, according to the United Nations.

According to testimonies gathered by HRW, girls are raped and forced to cook and clean for gang members and often abandoned once they become pregnant.

“Gabriel, the gang leader of Brooklyn [in Cite Soleil], asks his henchmen to bring him a virgin girl every month. With the boss doing this, there’s no way to stop others who do the same,” a humanitarian worker revealed to the New York-based group.

‘State absent’

According to HRW, “severe hunger” was the main reason for the children joining the criminal groups.

“They said the state was absent, there were no police in their neighbourhoods, and they had no legal economic or social opportunities to earn a living, buy food, or access basic necessities,” the report said.

Haiti’s gangs have been expanding their influence in recent years while state institutions have been paralysed by a lack of funds and political crises. Gangs now control territory where 2.7 million people live, including half a million children.

About a third of gang members are children, according to UN estimates. The criminal groups control nearly 80 percent of Port-au-Prince and are expanding into other areas, according to HRW.

The report said gangs are increasingly using popular social media apps to attract recruits. The leader of the Village de Dieu gang is a rapper and publishes music videos of his soldiers. HRW said he has a specialised unit to train children on handling weapons and setting up checkpoints.

The rights group said it interviewed 58 people, including children associated with criminal groups, humanitarian workers, diplomats and representatives of Haitian civil society and UN agencies in Port-au-Prince in July, and an additional 20 remotely.

The UN approved Haiti’s request for a multinational police mission to help the country’s police fight the gangs a year ago, but it has so far only been partially deployed.

HRW outlined several measures for both the government and the international community to address the deep instability including providing more resources for security forces, ensuring children are able to eat and go to school and providing rehabilitation for recruits.