Present Music 'Simple Songs'
After a one-year absence, Present Music returns to the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist for its long-standing Thanksgiving concert. The event has always been a multicultural musical celebration. As Co-Artistic Director Eric Segnitz puts it, “seeing different strands of our community join together in that space has always been a special experience.”
This year’s concert is called “Simple Songs” after Aaron Jay Kernis’ composition by that name. Kernis’ work epitomizes the concert’s objective of showing spiritual commonalities between cultures. The texts for the music include Psalms as well as the poetry of Hildegarde von Bingen (medieval European abbess), Ryokan (Japanese Zen master) and Rumi (Sufi poet).
“We are especially pleased to be reunited with 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winner Raven Chacon (with his haunting ‘Owl Song’), as well as perennial favorites soprano Ariadne Greif and the Little Priest Singers Native American singing and drumming group,” Segnitz continues. “We will also present a world premiere from Milwaukee composer Brian Packham, who describes his ‘Staircase Variations’ as a gradual metamorphosis from complex and competing relationships to a more authentic and universal truth.”
Present Music’s Co-Artistic Director David Bloom adds, “Thanksgiving is the perfect time to explore that most familiar and significant of musical forms: song. The emotional directness of a great song lends it a certain simplicity, but there’s nothing easy about making one. Alongside indigenous songs from Hawai’i and the Great Lakes that have been sung for centuries are songs that have yet to be heard. I’m especially excited to welcome back Present Music darling Ariadne Greif and for the highly anticipated return of Pulitzer laureate Raven Chacon.”
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5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 19 at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 812 N. Jackson St. For tickets and more information, visit presentmusic.org.
