Community College of Philadelphia Faculty Composer’s Music to Be Included in 9/11 Memorial Marathon Broadcast

Community College of Philadelphia Assistant Professor and Music Department Chair Robert Ross has had his setting of Psalm 51 in Hebrew for chorus and string orchestra selected to be aired during a 24-hour live broadcast entitled WE REMEMBER SEPTEMBER 11 on WPRB 103 FM (Princeton, New Jersey) between 4 and 6 PM on Sunday, September 11, 2011. The radio station’s main website may be accessed at http://www.classicaldiscoveries.org.

The work, which may be the first-ever setting of the complete text of Psalm 51 in Hebrew, was commissioned by Chamber Choir Cantinovum of the Jyvaskyla Polytechnik Institut (Jyvaskyla, Finland) and premiered there March 29 (Good Friday), 2002. It was subsequently performed September 15, 2002 for a 9/11 memorial there as well. The broadcast will be of a recording of the world premiere performance.

Although the work was not written specifically in response to 9/11, that disaster’s aftermath and effects on the US and the world significantly affected the composition of the work. Psalm 51 is, perhaps, one of the most anguished pleas for forgiveness and mercy in all the Bible, and the focus in relation to 9/11 is one of introspection, as in: How did my action or inaction contribute to this catastrophic event? How can I, as an individual, have acted differently before it happened? And how can I act differently to help prevent something like this from happening again?

The broadcast will also be streamed live on the internet at the links below:

http://listen.wprb.com/pls

http://listen.wprb.com/ram

http://listen.wprb.com/asx

http://www.wprb.com/listen.php

For Internet listeners link to: Time Zone Converter:

http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc

You can read more about this marathon at: MarvinTheCat Blog

WE REMEMBER SEPTEMBER 11

http://marvinthecat.wordpress.com/2011/08/20/we-remember-september-11-2/

Closer to the Marathon you will find more information on the home page of the Classical Discoveries website at:

http://www.classicaldiscoveries.org