The Kent State shootings happened while my mother was attending nearby Oberlin College. Oberlin’s response was to engage the entire student body in a performance of Mozart‘s Requiem in Washington DC.

I was in college when 9/11 happened. Remembering my mother’s story, a handful of students and I organized a performance of the same piece. We managed to engage so many students that our school was forced to shut down for the day, and some of our esteemed faculty even donated their voices to the cause.

Requiems have long been a regular part of church music. It’s not until Mozart, though, that they became a dramatic personal statement. After him, Berlioz, Brahms, Faure, Verdi, and Durufle wrote their own, and more or less solidified the concert Requiem as a standard form of composition. Still, when you talk about great Requiems, Mozart’s is the one by which all others are judged. And why not? It’s one of the most stunning things ever written. And it helps us express the many complex emotions that come with a tragedy like the one that happened in the US fifteen years ago.

There are two big myths surrounding this piece (and contributing to its popularity) – both were started by Mozart’s widow. First myth: a mysterious stranger (or a rival composer) commissioned the work. Second myth: Mozart believed he was writing his own funeral music. But they make for smashing good stories, anyway.

I originally had written a different post for today, but Saturday night’s tragic event forced me to publish it earlier than expected.

A year ago today, nine people in Charleston were killed in an act of hatred and terrorism. Sadly, we Americans hear this story a couple of times a year. It’s all too familiar; we humans are very capable of some very disturbing behavior. If you want to read about that, you can find it by searching any media site. Instead, I want to counter this frighteningly common, disturbing behavior, with the fact that humans are also capable of creating things of beauty – things that uplift our species and help us to look forward, even though there are some of us who behave like animals.

Composer Parker Kitterman was deeply moved by the 2015 Charleston tragedy, both because of the senselessness of the crime, and because of his deep south roots. His response to the massacre was to write a Requiem in nine movements – one for each of the victims of the attack. As the Charleston shooting was intended to incite a racial war, Kitterman responded by writing a work that seamlessly blends the sounds of European Art Music with that of African-American Gospel. The end result is a brand-new work (less than a year old) that will hopefully carry the banner of love and help bring healing to a sick world.

Kitterman’s Requiem was premiered on November 1st, 2015, on the Feast of All Saints’, when the Christian Church remembers those who have died in the last year. I am very proud to be participating in the second performance of this work, this evening.

This recording, from the Nov. 1 premiere, is the Introit, which gives just a little taste of the work. This performance is for choir and organ alone; tonight’s performance will use piano, drums, and bass as well.

When faced with such a senseless, horrible tragedy, we turn to music to help us find some peace, to help us heal, to help us move on.

A Requiem is a Roman Catholic mass said to pray for the soul of departed person. Today, Requiems are still said (and sung) in a liturgical setting; however, the beauty of the words and the human obsession with death have caused many composers to write their own Requiems, regardless of their faith (or lack thereof). Particularly famous Requiems include those by Mozart, Berlioz, Brahms, Faure, and Verdi – and ironically, none of these is known to have much, if any, faith. After those, there are a number of “underdog” requiems that are known by choirs, but not by orchestras. Among these is the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé.

This serenely beautiful work takes the melodies of the Gregorian Chant Requiem and dresses them up with lavish accompaniment by organ and orchestra. The result is a work that expresses the sorrow we feel when a loved one dies, but also a sincere hope in an afterlife. Unlike the more famous Requiems I mentioned earlier, Duruflé’s does not paint a terrifying picture of the end of time, with God as a cruel judge; instead, we are left with a calm, peaceful vision of heaven, where tragedies might be finally explained.