Fall 2021 Program Highlights

Crossing Borders Music is a chamber ensemble that uses music to promote the dignity of people from all cultures. Reflections from the Arab World, celebrating composers from Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and the USA will be presented to the First Pres community on October 3 at 4:00 pm. Renowned oud player, Issa Boulos, and several of his new arrangements for oud and string quartet will be featured. The “oud” is a stringed instrument similar to the Western lute, but with Arabic roots. We are also honored and pleased to announce that Jordanian composer, Tarek Younis, has been commissioned to write a brand new work for the CBM string quartet. This work will premiere during the October 3 concert. You will not want to miss it!

MORE ABOUT THE CONCERT:

First Presbyterian Church of Arlington Heights presents Crossing Borders Music in music for string quartet and oud from the Arab World! The program features the special guest artist Palestinian/American oud player, composer, arranger, ethnomusicologist, and teacher Issa Boulos performing his own brand new arrangements for string quartet and oud! The program also marks the world premiere of a string quartet commissioned by Crossing Borders Music of Jordanian composer Tarek Younis! And, Rasa Mahmoudian’s world premiere string quartet arrangement of the “International Refugees Anthem” by Syrian composer Arian Hu of Beijing, China! Works by Egyptian composer Gamal Abdel Rahim, American composer Mohammed Fairouz, Syrian-French composer Dia Succari, and the little-known String Quartet op. 7 by the exceptional Lebanese composer Toufic Succar, performed off the score provided to Crossing Borders Music by his wife Nenna Bakhtanassar (épouse Succar). This is not a program to miss!
We’d like to honor the diversity of opinions regarding the term “Arab World,” or “Levant.” In particular, we honor Toufic Succar’s request to be known specifically as a “Lebanese composer.”
Free and open to the public! Join us!
This program is presented by the First Presbyterian Church of Arlington Heights with support from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Join us for a conversation with Yale law professor, Stephen B. Bright. He has built a national reputation representing people facing the death penalty, advocating for the right to counsel for poor people accused of crimes, and challenging inhumane practices and conditions in prisons and jails.

More About the Event

As with everything that happened during the pandemic, last year we were forced to postpone our Annual Speaker event. This year we are picking up where we left off. We are very fortunate to welcome Stephen Bright, the Harvey L. Karp Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School, to First Pres on Sunday, October 10^th at 7:00pm. Mr. Bright has been critical force in the criminal justice system and has dedicated his legal career to helping those facing the death penalty.

Mr. Bright has successfully argued before the Supreme Court three times with the justices finding in his favor on each occasion. However, Mr. Bright’s most enduring legacy is as the founder and director the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta from 1982 to 2005, and as its president and senior counsel from 2006 to 2016. The Center’s legal work includes representing prisoners in challenges to unconstitutional conditions and practices in prisons and jails; challenging systemic failures in the legal representation of poor people in the criminal courts; and representing people facing the death penalty who otherwise would have no representation.

The theme for our evening is Finding Life on Death Row.You will hear stories from Mr. Bright about defendants he has represented and how many have gone on to become productive members of society. Mr. Bright will also discuss how race and poverty play an important role in how capital punishment cases are investigated and prosecuted. A vivid storyteller and scholar of Civil Rights history, Mr. Bright will illuminate the humanity of one of darkest corners of our criminal justice system.

This is an evening you won’t want to miss! Make sure to RSVP on our website as space will be limited. Also, in preparation for the evening, you may want to read Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014), Anthony Ray Hinton’s The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (2018) or Marc Bookman’s A Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays (2021). Even if you can’t get to the reading list, I hope you can make time for what will certainly be an amazing discussion.