Name: Meet You at the Crossroads: A Salon Concert
Start: 2025-04-06T19:00:00-05:00
Location: University of St. Thomas

Meet You at the Crossroads: A Salon Concert

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER (REQUIRED): https://tommielink.stthomas.edu/event/10413711

Produced by the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies, this kick-off event for the 2025 Culture of Encounter Ideas Festival invites the audience to a musical meeting place for African-American gospel and Somali blues. Led by celebrated vocalist and conductor J.D. Steele and writer-musician Ahmed Ismail Yusuf, the concert features an enthralling mix of local gospel singers and Somali poetry woven with rhyme, rhythm, and melody. Meet You at the Crossroads is both encounter and collaboration, in which two musical cultures and the communal traditions that gave life to them are explored in conversation during and after the concert. The event, curated by musician David Jordan Harris, is co-sponsored by the Cultural Fluency Initiative.
Opening with a welcome address from President Vischer, this salon concert offers a musical and cultural encounter featuring Black gospel and Somali blues, exploring interfaith and intercultural dialogue through performance and conversation.
Raised in a nomadic upbringing, Ahmed Ismail Yusuf is the author of three books: Gorgorkii Yimi, a collection of short stories in Somali, The Lion’s Binding Oath, a collection of short stories in English, and Somalis in Minnesota. His short stories appeared in Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali studies, Mizna: An Arab-American literary magazine. His play A Crack in the Sky was produced at the History Theater in Saint Paul and others were performed at Pangea (TALES OF TIME), New Arab American Theater CONSCIENCE CAFÉ as well as Mixed Blood Theater DANCE WITH ME. Other work of his appeared Home: An Anthology; Under Purple Skies: Minneapolis Anthology. His work appeared in Minneapolis, His mental health publications appeared in Journal of Muslim Mental Health; Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology; International Society for Traumatic-stress Studies, Psychiatry Times. He has a BS in creative writing and psychology from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut; and an MPA (Master of Public Affairs) from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Minnesota.

J.D. Steele exploded onto the Minnesota music scene in the mid-1980s along with Prince, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Soul Asylum and the Steeles, putting Minnesota on the national music map forever. Steele began his career singing and arranging jingles for local and national spots including Kodak, Target and other national brands. He developed his abilities as a vocal arranger as a young teen while directing a 100-voice choir at age 16. At Purdue University, where he majored in marketing, he organized and directed the African American Cultural Center ensemble and began writing and arranging his original compositions. Since arriving on the Minnesota music scene, Mr. Steele and his dynamic vocal siblings, The Steeles, have garnered every major music award and accolade the state has had to offer. Steele and the family began touring the international hit show “The Gospel at Colonus” with Morgan Freeman before finally landing on Broadway in 1988 for a successful nine-month run. After that, the Steeles signed their first record deal with Elektra Records and released “Heaven Help Us All” in 1993. Steele produced and co-wrote 12 of the 14 songs released on that record. Since then, he has produced, performed and recorded six additional Steeles albums and has gone on to write, produce, perform and record with Prince, Donald Fagen, George Clinton, Mavis Staples, Kim Carnes, Fine Young Cannibals, the Sounds of Blackness and many other artists. He has performed on stages all over America, in Spain, Italy, London, Moscow, South America and many other cities and countries.

David Jordan Harris, a graduate of the University of Chicago, is artistic director and co-founder of the Twin Cities-based performance ensemble Voices of Sepharad. Integrating his skills as a singer, actor, and dancer, he has appeared as guest artist with many ensembles, including Zorongo Flamenco, Katha Dance Theatre, Corning Dances and Company, Illusion Theater, North Star Opera, Rose Ensemble, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Lyra Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Español, and In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre. Harris was the founding music director of Shir Tikvah Congregation where he led music for 21 years and was the founding executive director of Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council. Harris has been interfaith arts special consultant for the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies at the University of St. Thomas and Saint John’s University since 2010. He brings a wealth of experience to the Center, drawing together cultural communities through theater, music, and dance, workshops for students and adults, innovative artistic collaborations, public forums, and artist salons.

Organized and Sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies at St. Thomas and co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Music, Film, and Creative Enterprise, Scene Setters, the Encountering Islam Initiative of the Theology Department, the Chapel Arts Series, and the Cultural Fluency Initiative. It is in collaboration with the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at Saint John's University (SJU), which is hosting this salon on April 27 at SJU.

The Cultural Fluency Initiative (CFI) creates unique immersive arts events for people of different backgrounds to come together to share their cultural heritages, traditions, stories, food and performances. Led by the playwright and producer Beck Lee, CFI promotes mutually supportive celebrations of cultural heritage in shared spaces, opens new pathways to explore one's own cultural lineages, and finds new ways to facilitate fluid identification from group to group.