Musicians recall 9/11 tribute in 2002,
On Sept. 11, 2002, conductors worldwide commemorated the first anniversary of 9/11 by dropping batons at precisely 8:46 a.m. in each time zone, when the first plane hit World Trade Center 1, signaling to millions of musicians to begin playing Mozart's last, unfinished work known as Requiem.
Four former Boulder residents recall their participation.
Boulder resident Melinda Mattingly and former Boulder resident Cathy Sparkman co-organized the Boulder Rolling Requiem, former University of Colorado Boulder doctorate student David Harris conducted the Boulder musicians, and former CU Boulder student Ashraf Sewailam was the bass soloist.
“Say yes to experiences because they are these transformative events in the life of a musician — such as the more than 600 of us did in 2002 playing in the Rolling Requiem for the 9/11 first anniversary performance,” Harris said. “Live, performing arts is essential — because it's healing, bonding and entirely transformative for both musician and observer.”
About 8 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001, Harris was arriving at CU Boulder and preparing for a department meeting; he didn't have a television and did not see the news. However, on his drive to the campus he heard NPR talking about a possible plane accident in New York City.
Harris said he felt grief the moment the events of 9/11 set in, w h i c h prompted him to want to honor the loss of life with his community. “I was new to Boulder in 2001, but by 2002 I had come to really love our community and see that we were all still very much raw and hurting a year later — Cathy (Sparkman) and Melinda (Mattingly) approached me about conducting this Rolling Requiem in Boulder with musicians worldwide. and it was just something I felt totally unprepared for but simply said ‘yes.'”
Sparkman and Mattingly worked within the span of three weeks to bring together more than 400 musicians in Boulder so that the Mountain Standard Time Zone would have representation in the global playing of Mozart's Rolling Requiem.
“I think both Melinda and I were just talking to whomever would listen and get the word out so we could participate here at home,” Sparkman said. A local banker paid the $300 the group needed to secure the venue.
“It was standing room only, and it was amazing and beautiful and brought many to tears to hear Mozart's unfinished song playing in solidarity with musicians worldwide as we commemorated the first anniversary of 9/11,” Mattingly said. “I would do it again.”
More than 7,000 miles away, former CU Boulder student Sewailam was screening the music for Disney animation “Oliver &
Company” in Egypt, when he heard about the attacks.
“My phone rang and it was my friends back in Boulder telling me to say, ‘the Twin Towers were hit' and I thought, well, no that's strange because I'm looking at the panned in view of Manhattan on the VHS and I didn't see the Twin Towers on fire,” Sewailam said. “My friend said, ‘No, turn on your news channel,' and immediately I did and saw both towers engulfed in flames.”
Sewaliam said he was in a unique situation at that point because he heard the cheers from his friends and family in Egypt, the nation where he was born and raised, but his heart mourned with his friends in America — the country he now calls home.
“I pretty much knew instantly I needed to get ‘home' because I had fallen in love with America and the American people — about 6 months, maybe 8 months later, I was back on U.S. soil and by 2014 I became a full citizen.”
One-by-one, the musicians quickly formed the Boulder Rolling Requiem Orchestra and practiced one time together before the official performance on Sept. 11, 2002. Roughly 200 groups worldwide participated.
“Music bonds people where words fail,” Sparkman said. “It was an extremely profound moment to share with our community where we could all begin to heal.”
Sewaliam said, “It was not only a moment to bond with our community in a collective healing — it was a moment to honor what we all survived in various ways, but mostly, it showcased how we are all connected as humans through music.”