Stephen Edwards, who has scored more than 60 movies, composed this requiem in memory of his mother, who began his musical education, and ultimately died of cancer. He notes that a requiem is a Catholic service that sends the soul “from the living world to the cosmic world.” He felt it “couldn’t be big enough,” and so scored it for a 60-voice children’s and a 200-voice adult choir plus full orchestra. The work had its premier at the Vatican. Its genesis and performance are subjects of an award-winning documentary with the same title. The orchestral writing is tonal, pungent, and the work contains high energy, beautiful singing, lyricism, drama, and a myriad of moods and nuances, echoing the journey from pathos to paradise. The high opening flute solo represents his mother, both a flutist and a choral director; the work’s choral character is thus doubly symbolic.