Present Music
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist
812 N. Jackson St.
4 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 23
Present Music has long celebrated Thanksgiving with grand performances in the cathedral. This year’s concert, “A Juxtaposition of Traditions,” includes Present Music instrumentalists; vocal ensemble Hearing Voices; and 90-plus musicians from Milwaukee Handbell Ensemble, Vocal Arts Academy, Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra and Muskego High School. The Bucks Native American Singing and Drumming Group will lead the “Friendship Dance,” a participatory concert tradition. Two works by Turkish American composer Kamran Ince will be featured: Hammers and Whistlers, an exaltation of creation and expression with auditory effects ranging from chirping to new additions to the alphabet; and Gloria (Everywhere), a setting of a poem about the diverse love of God by Sufi poet Jelaleddin Rumi. Also on the bill is English composer Gavin Bryars’ Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, an orchestral arrangement of a mysterious hymn Bryars heard from a homeless man in 1971.
According to Present Music’s development manager Erin M. Woehlke, “We have all these juxtapositions of traditions and it works perfectly, seamlessly. It brings in old friends and new faces and all in ‘traditional’ Present Music style, which is pretty non-traditional.”
