The following concert can be heard nationally and on line at WFMT.com

Healing the Brokenhearted

January 13, 2013 at 7:00 pm

Chicago’s Young Artists in Remembrance of Children Lost to Violence

Doreen Rao

In response to President Obama’s message to “come together” and “be at our best as Americans,” seven of Chicago’s finest choirs will sing to heal the brokenhearted. In memory of the children and teachers lost to gun violence in Newtown, Connecticut, this memorial concert will feature American music, including a newly commissioned Requiem Mass by Lita Grier interspersed with a prayerful array of solo art songs and interfaith meditations.

For the first time ever, five of Chicago’s nationally recognized children’s choirs will join together in concert at St. James Cathedral. They will perform not just as young choirs singing together, but as musical citizens determined to sing with ‘one voice’ in service of the grieving parents and families who lost their beautiful children.

The combined choirs will be joined by an interfaith roster of spiritual leaders and a cast of celebrated vocal artists. The radio broadcast will be hosted by 11 year-old Masha Lakisova, a talented violinist and engaging speaker.

We hope this memorial concert and radio broadcast will provide solace and comfort to all who hear it.

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
–Leonard Bernstein

Participants in this memorial concert include:

• Doreen Rao, conductor
• Lita Grier, composer
• Wayland Rogers, composer
• Carolyn Paulin, WFMT Producer
• Eric Arunas, WFMT Engineer
• Don Mueller, WFMT Technical Producer & Location Supervisor
• Walt Whitman Jr., Soul Children of Chicago
• Molly Stone, Chicago Children’s Choir
• Emily Ellsworth, Anima Young Singers of Chicago
• William Chin, Pro Music Youth Chorus
• Jacquelyn Negus, Sharon Augsberger, Red Rose Children’s’ Chorus
• Michelle Areyzaga, soprano
• Scott Ramsey, tenor
• Levi Hernandez, baritone
• Luciano Laurentiu, pianist
• Julia Coronelli, harp
• Bruce Barber II, St. James Cathedral Choir
• Paul French, William Ferris Chorale
• Members of the Chicago Symphony Youth Orchestra, Allen Tinkham, Director

Meditations by:

• The Right Rev. Jeffrey Lee, XII [twelfth] Bishop of Chicago
• The Very Rev. Joy Rogers, pastor of St. James Cathedral
• Rabbi Evan Moffic, of Congregation Solel
• S.S. Shiva Singh Khalsa, Minister of Sikh Dharma
• The Rev. Liz Muñoz, St. James Cathedral