ONLINE: Present Music

media release: Present Music, Milwaukee’s internationally-acclaimed new music ensemble, launches its 2020-2021 Ensemble Series with Reality Check, a highly-produced online concert filmed on a Milwaukee rooftop. This concert will be released during an online event on Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 7:30 pm Central and will be available to ticket holders worldwide for three months following the release.

In this bold new innovation in the concert experience, Present Music makes a passionate musical call to action that highlights critical social issues, including racial justice, prison reform, women’s rights, and climate change.

Featured guest artist Klassik, Milwaukee hip-hop artist and an alumnus of Present Music’s Creation Project, performs with PM in fresh new arrangements of his own music, along with Frederic Rzewski’s iconic work Coming Together. The program also includes music by David T. Little, Emma O’Halloran, and Gil Scott-Heron and features soprano Sarah Brailey and theater artist Sheri Williams Pannell.

Present Music and the guest artists performed this program on the top level of a Milwaukee parking structure with stunning skyline views. Filmmaker Wes Tank and his company TankThink captured the performance with multiple camera angles, including drone footage, blazing a trail for an entirely new way to reach audiences with thrilling new performances.

On October 24, ticket holders will be invited to a virtual event held on Zoom video conferencing during which they’ll be able to talk with performers, composers, PM’s Co-Artistic Directors, and the rest of the audience before and after watching the concert video. Following the event, ticket holders will have access to the concert video to watch on-demand until January 24, 2021.

CONCERT DETAILS

REALITY CHECK — Online concert

Saturday, October 24, 2020 | 7:30 pm CDT

Zoom Video Conferencing

Available on-demand through January 24, 2021

TICKETS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS

Single tickets for online concerts are $10. Tickets and subscriptions are now on sale at presentmusic.org and (414) 271.0711.

Reality Check is made possible with generous support from the United Performing Arts Fund, the sponsorship of Saint John’s on the Lake, and grants from the Milwaukee Arts Board and the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin and the National Endowment for the Arts.

ABOUT THE GUEST ARTISTS

Klassik is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and performer who is as dexterous a rapper as he is an impassioned and soulful singer and a unique, unbridled storyteller. A Milwaukee native, he was voted Milwaukee’s best Rap-Hip Hop Producer for the Shepherd Express for three consecutive years, and his most recent album (QUIET, 2019) was named the Album of the Year by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Radio Milwaukee Music Awards. Klassik has opened for such artists as Ludacris, Talib Kweli, Kendrick Lamar, Banks, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, and Rakim. A true class act, Klassik works to stir the souls of listeners into action with empathy, passion, and purpose through his own self-reflective sonic art.

Sheri Williams Pannell is a native Milwaukeean who has performed, directed or written for such theater and arts organizations as First Stage, Florentine Opera, Milwaukee Chamber Theater, Milwaukee Fringe Festival, Milwaukee Rep, Milwaukee Symphony, Milwaukee Art Museum, Skylight Music Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Utah’s Old Lyric Theatre, and Children’s Theater of Madison. In 2017, Pannell was an Artist of the Year by the City of Milwaukee. A founding member and artistic director at Bronzeville Arts Ensemble, Pannell is also a director/teaching artist at Black Arts MKE.

Sarah Brailey enjoys a career filled with a plethora of diverse projects including soloing in Handel’s Messiah with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, performing with Kanye West and Roomful of Teeth at the Hollywood Bowl, and singing John Zorn in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. Born in southwestern Wisconsin, she is co-founder of Just Bach, a monthly concert series in Madison, where she is co-host of Musica Antiqua on 89.9 FM and the Artistic Director of the Handel Aria Competition.