Strange Fruit Music Festival Will Make A Stop At The Marcus Center's Peck Pavilion

Voodoohoney Records has announced details for the third annual Strange Fruit Music Festival. The Festival will be presented from August 29th through September 2nd at various locations around the city of Milwaukee.

According to James Anderson and festival organizers, this year's Strange Fruit Music Festival continues its effort to foster a greater sense of communication between all communities in our city. To merely survive, humans need good water, food, and shelter; but in order to thrive we need love, tolerance, and the kinship of our fellow people.

For many who've attended, the Festival has offered deep insights into how the musical community deeply desires the ability to trust each other, learn together, and grow together. The festival's name was inspired by a song made famous by Billie Holiday and written by Abel Meeropol after he saw a photograph of a lynching in the South. The photo "haunted him for days" and prompted him to pen a poem which could express his sadness and horror. The lyrics never mention lynching, but the message was clear.

"The Strange Fruit Festival will exist as an annual event highlighting the conversation, the emotions, and the progression forward, through music, art, poetry, and conversation," said Anderson, founder of VoodooHoney Records. "We look forward to having others join us in this effort to promote the world our music deserves to live in."

This year the Festival will partner with the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts for a concert at the outdoor Peck Pavilion on the Marcus Center grounds. The concert will take place on Saturday, September 1 beginning at 6 pm. The concert is free, all ages and open to the public. The Marcus Center is located at 929 N. Water Street in downtown Milwaukee.

The Strange Fruit Music Festival also echoes the sentiments of Leonard Bernstein in response to the murder of John F. Kennedy: "We musicians, like everyone else, are numb with sorrow at this murder, and with rage at the senselessness of the crime. But this sorrow and rage will not inflame us to seek retribution; rather they will inflame our art. Our music will never again be quite the same. This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."

The full schedule of events includes:

Wednesday, August 29
6:00 PM - 8:45 PM
The Diaspora Arkestra at Washington Park Bandshell

Thursday, August 30
6:00 PM
The Panel On The State of Race at the transfer Pizza Back Room
8:00 PM
The Fern at the cactus Club, Burlesque speakeasy jam session Feat. Arséne DeLay, Hollis Kaye, and Aphrodisiac Slays

Friday, August 31
9:00 PM
Strange Fruit at Club Timbuktu Feat. Klassik, Kevin Hayden, and surprise guest.

Saturday, September 1
6:00 PM
Strange Fruit at the Marcus Center Peck Pavilion Feat.
Cache Milwaukee
Christopher Deangelo Gilbert
Nwa Na Agbe

Sunday, September 2
12:00 PM
Brunch at Alice's Garden Featuring a Sermon from Venice Williams
10:00 PM
Strange Fruit at company Brewing Feat. Foreign goods and Sara & Kenny

Information on the Strange Fruit Festival is available at www.VoodoohoneyRecords.com.