I have been home scarcely two days and jet lag has hit me hard—as it always does. There’s no problem going east in spite of having no sleep on the plane, but coming home is a different story!

I arrived in Honolulu about 3:30 pm on Tuesday, with a 3 hour stop in San Francisco and unpacked my suitcase. About 5:00 pm I thought I’d take a little nap before picking up my dinner downstairs. Guess what! I slept until 1:15 am, missing dinner completely!

Now it’s very early on Thursday—and I ate dinner last night about 6:30 pm, closed my eyes for a few minutes and the next thing I know, it’s 1:19 am and I’m writing this post! I figure that as long as I’m awake, I may as well be productive.

Tomorrow I am going over to a new venue for me, St. John Vianney in Kailua, to check out the organ where I will be accompanying John Alexander‘s Requiem with the Windward Choral Society, conducted by Susan McCreary Duprey. The work is also scored for harp, cello and English horn and I consider it one of the most beautiful of John’s compositions—I played movements from it several times during my tenure at Iolani School.

Here is what John wrote about Requiem:

Susie McCreary Duprey, Founder and Director of the Windward Choral Society, has chosen my Requiem as the centerpiece of her spring concert on Sunday, May 6 at 4:00 p.m. at St. John Vianney to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the passing of her father, Canon John McCreary, choirmaster-organist at St. Andrew’s Cathedral for 35 years.  Although John McCreary was a very prolific composer …  Susie still finds it too difficult to program her father’s music.

I composed my Requiem while on a sabbatical from ‘Iolani School in the fall of 1998.  John McCreary, who taught at ‘Iolani School for 22 years and was the school’s organist for 27 years (and continued as accompanist of the Chorus of ‘Iolani School until his death at age 83), mentored me through the process of finding the correct texts for the Requiem, their proper order, teaching me which are mandatory and which are optional as a musical work, and where to find the best translations from the Latin for each.  In so doing, John McCreary helped to ensure that the piece could be sung at a funeral Mass as appropriate service music.

I shared my then-recent creation with Henry Leck, a prominent choral director from Butler University in Indiana.  Henry was in town as the clinician for the 2000 Hawai’i High School All-State Honor Choir, which I helped to organize and run.  He loved it so much that he asked me to teach it to the honor choir, and they performed it a few days later at their concerts at BYU-Hawai‘i and Kawaiaha‘o Church.  My own students performed it at their 1999 spring concert.

Henry Leck was so taken with my piece that he had it published as part of his choral series with Colla Voce Music, Inc., the first of several dozen pieces published by Colla Voce.  My Requiem has since been performed all over the United States.  Additionally, during several summers in the early 2000’s, Henry Leck served as the director of the 500-voice Tuscany International Children’s Choral Festival Choir; they performed an all-treble version of it at several venues in Italy, including at the Vatican.

My inspiration for the small chamber orchestra accompaniment came from Requiem of English composer John Rutter.  I like the sparse, soloistic quality of the instruments, each of which stands in for an entire section within a larger symphonic orchestra.  In my opinion, the cello in my Requiem is the 5th voice, singing along with soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

The Pie Jesu movement, placed squarely in the middle of the piece, was written several years later on the anniversary of the passing of a close friend, Kenny Cruz, to whom I have dedicated the entire work.  For me, the Pie Jesu is the best thing I’ve ever written, choral or instrumental.

I’ve spoken with many singers from Hawai’i and around the Mainland who have sung my Requiem and/or other choral compositions.  They all make the same comment:  “I really love singing your stuff!”  That makes me very happy.  I hope the love the singers feel always comes through in their performance.

The concert is free—and here are the pertinent details: Sunday, May 6 at 4:00 pm, St. John Vianney Church, 920 Keolu Drive, Kailua. Malia Ka’ai Barrett, soprano, and Karol Nowicki, tenor, are the featured soloists.

Here’s a piano version only performance I found on YouTube by the OAKE 2003 National Concert Choir, conducted by Henry Leck.