Requiem for Fourteen Roses
Written to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the École Polytechnique Massacre, "Requiem for Fourteen Roses" is a concert-length work for female vocal soloist, choir, flute, 2 flugelhorns, 2 trombones, cello, contrabass, and piano. It begins with 14 tolls of a bell while roses are laid, and continues with instrumental, vocal, and choral music.
Though not written specifically as a religious work, the choir does sing some sections of the traditional mass, as well as the 23rd Psalm, in French. The choir also has sections to sing in English, using texts by Rabindranath Tagore, who won a Nobel prize for his work. These texts are in the public domain.
The female soloist sings music composed to contemporary sonnets from the Governor General's Award-winning book, "Woman at a Piano" by poet Ted Blodgett, who has graciously granted permission for his work to be used in this context. Sienna Dahlen, the vocalist from the "Notes on Montreal" CD that received this year's Juno award for vocal jazz, has agreed to perform the works.
Author-poet Coleman Barks has also granted permission for his interpretations of Rumi's poems to be included as texts.
Interspersed among the vocal works are fourteen short instrumental vignettes to be performed by the brass quartet, one for each of the young women who were murdered.
This project has significance for me as a composer of vocal music, but also as a Canadian woman. Like many of the young women who were lost, I was born in the second half of the 1960's. I have often stopped to wonder what they might be doing now had their lives not been cut short. The 25th anniversary is significant because 25 years represents a generation of Canadians, and a generation is long enough to forget. For many, the event and its memorials have come to represent violence against women, and though this is important, I view this music project in larger terms. There are so many forms of violence in our society: against women, children, men, animals, the Earth, our very selves, and more. Simply put, we must learn to be good to each other, and in addition to the fourteen young women who lost their lives on December 6 - 1989, I dedicate this work to the good that resides in each of us.
Elise Letourneau
