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.

You’d think that naming the “bestest choral piece ever written ever” would be a subjective matter. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not; this is nothing short of hard science. If you disagree with me, it’s because you’re wrong. Sorry.

German joke time – Johann Sebastian Bach was a “sechs” maniac. He wrote six (sechs) Brandenburg concertos, six English suites, six French suites, six organ trios, six violin suites, six cello suites, six flute sonatas, (the list goes on …), and six motets. Joking aside, it is said that this is an homage to God’s making the world in six days and resting on the seventh – Bach wouldn’t presume God-like perfection by writing a seventh concerto, suite, motet, etc. Little did he know that he actually had achieved God-like perfection in practically every note he penned.

The motets were mostly written as funeral pieces. When a person died, Bach’s choir of St. Thomas church would gather outside the home of the deceased and sing a motet before the body was processed to the church for the funeral service. This motet is written for two 4-voice choirs, and is a tour-de-force of what styles were expected of a baroque composer and what the baroque voice was expected to do. This stuff is exceedingly difficult (but fun) to sing; the writing is simply amazing. A quick outline:

• 0:00 a vocal courante, sung antiphonally between the two choirs
• 2:17 one choir begins singing a fugue, accompanied by the other’s choirs continued courante
• eventually the other choir joins in on the fugue – both choir simultaneously sings the fugue AND the dance
• 4:40 a vocal chorale prelude – one choir sings a hymn, while the other provides commentary
• 8:40 another vocal antiphonal dance, this time a bourrée
• and because that’s never enough for Bach, at 10:07, a marvelous fugue which both choirs sing together

Sing this at my funeral, please.

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.