Name: REQUIEM - West Seattle Concert
Start: 2025-03-09T15:00:00-07:00
End: 2025-03-09T16:30:00-07:00
Location: Holy Rosary West Seattle

Come hear this stirring concert that looks at the ways we confront death in our art, and that despite the presence of pain of loss in our lives, we can move forward with resiliency and hope.
The fist half of the program features Dale Trumbore's How to Go On. Following the death of a loved one, poet Barbara Crooker asks, "How can we go on, knowing the end of the story?" The piece answers this question in eight movements that range from questioning and doubt (“How”) to introspection (“Relinquishment”) to an acceptance of mortality (“When at Last”).
The second half begins with Herbert Howells’ timeless Requiem. When the piece was first composed in 1932 it was inexplicably never performed. It’s possible Howells lacked a capable choir to perform it at the time. A few years later came the untimely death of Howells’ 9 year-old son, and he decided the work was too personal and painful to hear, so it was set aside until 1980 when it was finally released it and it was quickly recognized as one of the great choral masterpieces of the 20th century.
The concert will end with a piece titled Dawn by PNW composer John Muehleisen, and then a set of Spirituals by some of the iconic composers/arrangers of that genre: William Dawson, Andre Thomas, and Undine Smith Moore. Muehleisen’s Dawn was commissioned as a companion piece to the Howells Requiem and sets a text by poet Brian Newhouse that manages to turn the all-too-common fear of death into a message of comfort and hope for a restful end. Of course in the words of the Spirituals we are given a message of struggle, perseverance, and ultimately hope from a group of people dealing with unspeakable worldly oppression, and who still call to us all to move forward in hope and love.
We hope you will join us for this performance, which is not to be missed! Tickets are $50 for reserved seating, $30 for general admission, and all students and children under 18 are free (we still would love for student tickets to be reserved through Ticketleap).