1 . “Do what you love, not what others tell you is right,” said Georgia Lines. Recently. I interviewed the 24-year-old singer-songwriter about her rise to ________. In 2022, Georgia was named the great artist of the year at the Aotearoa Music Awards ceremony.

Georgia’s success looks ________, but she has worked hard to perfect her craft (技艺). “I love what I do,” she said. “I love it when I get. ________ in the music, and everything works together.” Georgia has written more than 20 ________ and worked together with several top ________. When she works with others, she works ________ as they can exchange ideas with each other. When asked about her musical ________, Georgia smiled. I had no musical talent as a child, and I’d never thought I could reach them,” she said. “But I ________ loved singing and music.”

Some enthusiastic crowds always ________ her concerts, and Georgia never ________ them. As an artist, Georgia has a(n) ________ mind. She said, “I never compare myself with others. I just ________ doing what I love.” That means, focusing on her own artistic ________. “Comparison is the ________ of success,” she said. “If I had stopped to ________ myself with others, I wouldn’t have made it as far as I have.”

5 . Tina Turner’s death reminded me of the day I first discovered her voice. I was on Thanksgiving break—bored—when I tried to look through my parents’ old records _________ entertainment. What I found was an album called “Private Dancer”.

“Who was this woman?” I thought as the song I Might Have Been Queen _________. “What had she been through?”

I quickly _________ an expert on the matter: my mom, who as a teenager in the 1960s, had been listening to Tina. Mom didn’t sugarcoat the superstar’s sad family life: Off-stage, her husband was _________ her. It was something Mom—and most others—didn’t know when she and Dad first went to see her _________ in the 1970s.

It was shocking and _________ to hear. But Mom also told me about Tina’s _________ despite her suffering and said that the concert was _________.

I wanted to _________ this. Five years later, I did.

In 1997, we made the five-hour drive from our home in Doyline, Louisiana, to The Woodlands, Texas, to __________ Tina on her Wildest Dreams world tour.

I was amazed. Her endearing smile and air kisses to the __________ made it seem like she really was __________ we were there. My uncle who had waited in line for hours to buy the tickets for our lawn seats said after the show, “Kids, tonight you’ve been in the presence of __________.”

That night was also a moment of personal awakening. It wasn’t just an unbelievable performance; it was also part of my parents’ __________ to broaden my worldview. Tina __________ them to do that.

7 . Liu Wenwen, 33, is the first suona (唢呐) player to study for a doctor’s degree. On China’s social media platforms, her name is often followed by a video of her live ________ at a concert in Sydney, Australia.

Born into a suona family, Liu Wenwen was ________ to play it at a very early age. In the 1990s, China’s reform and opening-up drive was in full swing, and people admired things that were modern and international. Suona, ________, was considered an art of the hillbilly (乡巴佬). Her classmates at primary school ________ her, saying her whole family was engaged only in “weddings and funerals (丧礼)”. Indeed, these are the two major ________ where suona is played in the countryside. Liu felt ashamed. “Despite my ________”, she recalled, “my parents would wake me up at 4 am every day and take me to practice outside in a park, ________ the instrument was so loud that it ________ the neighbors when I practiced at home.”

________, she didn’t fall in love with the instrument until she went to Shanghai Conservatory of Music. “The music played by Professor Liu Ying, a top player, is just ________, and different from what I heard before,” she said.

Liu Wenwen is also ________ in Shanghai. She loves exchanging ideas about suona playing techniques with her students. “It’s wonderful to see the younger generation ________ the cultural heritage.”

Liu Wenwen has promoted the “hillbilly” music to a(n) ________ audience. She said, “My hard work has ________. I trained for over 20 years, probably just to ________ cheers and applause for traditional Chinese music on the international stage.”

8 . Pedicab(三轮车)operator Sarah Grant and street violinist Anna Roznowska live in the same community. When they realized in March that their livelihoods and lifestyles were _________ by New Orleans’s stay-at-home order to_________ the spread of COVID-19,they were at a loss at first. Then they decided to take their_________ on the road.

The two have named their_________ the Mobile Music Box. Grant rides the pedicab that carries Roznowska as she_________,and the performance winds its way through New Orleans neighbourhoods.

Strict limits on gatherings have_________ concerts, parades and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which would have brought hundreds of thousands of people_________ late April.

Now Roznowska’s freestyle melodies(旋律)on her_________ run through the New Orleans streets.

“It’s_________ and uplifting. Live__________ is what we miss most right now, and it brings everyone out and makes everyone feel like it’s a__________ day,”said resident Elsa Kern, who stopped to__________ as the women rolled past.

Based on their performances so far, it certainly puts smiles on the faces of the residents they pass.“Fantastic, it is something to__________ the neighbourhood,” said resident Willie Anderson.

Roznowska and Grant don’t have a regular schedule or route(路线).“We don’t make money. It is something that was definitely born out of__________ and probably has a bit of a life of its own,”Grant said. “So there’s no real__________ except just to keep doing it.”

9 . When I was a little girl, one of my favorite things was a shoebox. I ________ it up with pieces of paper, cards and leaflets (传单) that I had gathered. I called the box my “Post Office”. Every now and then. I would take it from under my bed and pour my “________” on the floor. I loved to play “Post Office”. I ________ them by size or color and then put them back separately into the _________

This led me to ________ a new hobby—writing letters to children I had never met. It was ________ to send my written pages to people I would never talk to ________. My best pen friends were Svetlana in Belarus and Alastair in central England. They all lived far away from me.

It was to Alastair that I first ________ declared my dream of being a songwriter. Actually, I had ________ written a single song and I had no idea how to do so. But I told myself that I had to realize this ________ well, I should never let my best friends ________. I started to discover my favorite bands and thought about how I should ________ a song.

As I grew ________, I had more people to write to. In my early teens, I wrote to kids I had met on school trips and boys at other schools to talk about whatever we wanted. The ________ I found to express myself in letters is one of the greatest ________ of my childhood.

The box threw new ________ on my life and my love for writing letters never ________ me. As I now create music, I always remember my childhood ________ all my life. Releasing new songs is ________ to sending out handwritten letters. My “Post Office” is ________ I got started.