The Bulletin: Arts & Culture Roundup | 15 November

THE BIG APPLE AWARD: OPPORTUNITY FOR BANDS
Last year's winners of The Big Apple Award were hip-hop band Stanley Odd – they won themselves the opportunity to perform alongside The View in New York City. "Winning the Creative Scotland Big Apple Award was both an amazing honour and a fantastic opportunity," says Dave Hook, aka MC Solareye, the band's frontman. "We ended up playing seven gigs in seven days while in New York during Scotland Week and winning the award enabled us to do that, build and expand our fanbase in America and has also had a very positive effect on our profile and audience in the UK. Nordoff Robbins Scotland provided us with a platform from which to further develop and the whole trip was an outstanding experience."  

The search to find this year's winner begins this week – enter here, and a panel of industry experts will judge your demo, with five shortlisted bands going on to play a 'battle of the bands'-style showdown at The Garage in Glasgow on 11 December. The competition is open to emerging Scottish bands – see website for full details. The award is sponsored by Creative Scotland in association with music charity Nordoff-Robbins.

PUSSY RIOT SINGER FOUND
Pussy Riot's Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who vanished from the public eye for three weeks while being transferred from a prison in central Russia to a remote prison camp in Siberia, has been found alive in a Russian hospital's tuberculosis ward, where she is undergoing treatment for complications arising from her hunger strike. She spoke to husband  Pyotr Verzilov this week. "She is in good condition," Verzilov told the website Voiceproject. She has assured Verzilov that "conditions are way better then Mordovia and she is cheerful… was super happy to hear that authorities in Mordovia have reversed several rejections in the investigation into her death threats and have issued a special reprimand punishment towards the head of her old prison in Mordovia.” The prison in Siberia to which she willbe transferred after treatment is reportedly 2,500 miles and four time zone's away from Tolokonnikova's family and friends in Moscow. 

BABY BOOMERS VS. CULTURE: THE DEBATE
Quietus editor and journalist Luke Turner's essay Golden Balls: How The Baby Boomers Stole Music (read an extract here), caused quite a stir upon publication – Turner levelled accusations at the 60s generation over their music's continuing dominance, arguing that the pre-eminence of Boomer bands such as The Rolling Stones was having a negative effect on the current generation's cultural life (echoing the sentiment of Paul Morley's earlier missive on the issue in the Guardian this past March). Turner's essay was published in full in a recent Quietus ebook anthology. At the recent Incubate festival, a panel of journalists got together to discuss Turner's essay and its ramifications. 

FESTIVAL WATCH: SONAR NORDIC WEEKEND 
Sonar's Nordic Weekend (14-15 Feb) will feature a who's who of the most exciting electronic music around, with headliners including Jon Hopkins, James Holden, Evian Christ, Daphni, Bonobo and Major Lazer, among others. Details and tickets here.

AUDITION FOR STAR WARS VII
J.J. Abrams and Disney have put out a call for actors to audition for the new Star Wars movie, which begins shooting very soon – the directior recently posted the first behind-the-scenes shot from the production on his Twitter, subsequently confirming the return of at least one original cast member. Now, Disney have asked aspiring Jedi and Sith to send videos of themselves, prior to open auditions being held in Glasgow, Dublin, Manchester and London in the weeks to come. According to the NME, "producers are looking to cast two lead roles for Star Wars: Episode VII – a 'street smart' girl in her late teens and a 'smart, capable' man in his early 20s."

PAUL MCGANN RETURNS AS DOCTOR WHO IN NEW MINI-EPISODE
Paul McGann definitely got the short end of the stick in his one-episode run as The Doctor. Facing off against a camp Eric Roberts as The Master, and with the action relocated to the US, the abortive reboot didn't sit well with fans, despite praise for McGann's performance. Now, in anticipation of the UK premiere of the new Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special The Day of the Doctor, McGann reprises his role in a 7-minute short written by Steven Moffat, revealing a key plot point, and joining the dots between the last few incarnations of The Doctor. The short will build excitement for the Anniversary episode, which screens on 23 November, and will see Scottish actor Peter Capaldi taking over the role from Matt Smith. 

MARS: BEFORE THE FALL
This fascinating simulation video from MAVEN, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN project, shows what Mars may have looked like billions of years ago, before becoming the barren, desert-like planet it is today. The MAVEN mission, run by NASA, looks at climate change on Mars, and will enter Mars orbit in September next year. They hope to gather data about the reasons for Mars' transformation into the Red Planet. For now though, check out their video – it shows Mars as a fertile, arid planet, full of rivers, lakes and stunning vistas.