Requiem For My Mother

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.