Theme of Stephen Paulus’s 9/11 Tucson piece still relevant

“I told him up front … I imagined two pieces on a concert: It’s the Mozart Requiem, which is about looking back and remembering and honoring the dead; and then I wanted a new piece that helped us to move forward because it still felt eight, nine, 10, years after 9/11, that we were just still stuck in the past and finger-pointing as to who was to blame. I was looking for a piece of healing to bring us together in marking this significant milestone.

“We were going for (an emotional, hopeful balance), but we were also wanting to convey a message. (Paulus) drew from a variety of texts, and there were a number of texts that represented the major religions — Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Native American culture — with this common theme of loving one’s neighbor. It felt like that was a message we needed to really convey at a time, like I said, that there was still finger-pointing as to who was to blame and blaming large groups of people. There were these attacks on the Muslim community as if they were to blame for this tragedy. We wanted to draw texts from all of these major religions with this common message of loving one’s neighbor.

(True Concord debuted “Prayers and Remembrances” with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra at Centennial Hall on Sept. 11, 2011.)

“That was a pivotal moment, and the piece was a pivotal piece for us. Not that that was the intention. Again, the intention was to honor and mark this very sober and somber event. But the piece was very well received.

“The message was very powerful, so we wanted to record it, and we did record it two years later with Stephen here in Tucson. And unfortunately, it turned out that that was the last major project he ever did because six weeks later, after that recording, he had his tragic stroke from which he never recovered.