Concert promotes world peace, religious tolerance

On Tuesday  at 6:30 p.m., at Buskirk-Chumley Theater, Omer Turkmenoglu’s ambition takes the stage in the form of Abraham’s Children: A Prayer for Peace. Turkmenoglu hopes that the concert will promote “world peace through spiritual unity” and one day be performed at the White House.

The concert features the intertwining of the three Abrahamic faiths: Christianity, Judaism and Islam, as a means of promoting the peace that Turkmenoglu discovered once he left his birthplace of Iraq for Turkey at age 19.

“It is my dream that this can have a large impact starting in Bloomington,” Turkmenoglu said.

The concert is open to all ages and free of charge thanks to a laundry list of sponsors.

The Prayer for Peace concert’s performers also hail from the three faiths. Turkmenoglu, a Muslim, performs as the tenor, Shareese Johnson, a Christian, performs as a soprano and Arik Luck, who is Jewish, performs as a baritone.

Turkmenoglu has performed in front of six presidents: two Turkish, two Azerbaijani, one Turkmenistanian and one Pakistani, and hopes that U.S. President Barack Obama will become the seventh.

-Adam Lukach