St. John’s Choir and Friends Concert

The 27th annual St. John’s Choir & Friends concert will be held at 7 p.m. on Sunday, May 7 at St. John’s Lutheran Church, 355 St. John’s Circle, Phoenixville. Performed will be “Requiem for the Living” by Dan Forrest accompanied by the 35 member Providence Chamber Orchestra joined by Janet Witman, harp and conducted by F. Thomas Snyder, III, director of music at St. John’s. Over 70 singers from 26 area churches join in the chorus.

Soloists are soprano Kim Russel, soprano, critically acclaimed as a dynamic singing actress on the operatic, oratorio, and concert hall stages. She was selected Most Promising Young Singer in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and Mark Pinto, tenor, cantor and tenor section member at St. Eleanor Catholic Church in Collegeville. Pinto is the adult services director at Phoenixville Public Library, and is also a part-time on-air classical host at radio station WRTI in Philadelphia.

Dan Forrest’s “Requiem for the Living” is a remarkably fresh reworking of a centuries-old liturgical standard. It begins and ends in a barely audible musical whisper, creating both a feeling of reverence and a sense of awe. The five movements explore a range of musical and emotional motifs from quiet and contemplative to harshly critical. While Forrest does not include a terrifying Dies Irae, his second movement— “Vanitas Vanitatum,” vanity of vanities, all is vanity — begins with an almost martial cadence that is later juxtaposed with expressions of sorrow (“Pereat dies in qua natus sum” – let the day perish in which I was born), a raw mixture of Ecclesiastes and Job.

As do the Requiems of Brahms, Duruflé, Fauré, and others, Forrest’s Requiem for the Living works toward emotional and spiritual support for the living. Forrest, however, goes beyond the quest for solace in the face of death, a traditional function of the Requiem, seeking a way to be at peace with the turmoil and sorrow which humanity faces in the twenty-first century. In the final movement, “Lux Aeterna,” the tenor solo dispenses with the Latin text to sing in English, “Come unto me all ye who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” His “Sanctus” is famously inspired by images of the cosmos (“pleni sunt caeli”) taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and shots of the Blue and white Earth taken from the International Space Station.

There is no admission charge although a free-will offering will be received. A reception follows the concert. Arrive early as a full house is anticipated.