To observe the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, choruses from Washington, New York City, Pennsylvania and Boston will alternate performances throughout the day on Friday. They are part of the “Remember to Love” commemoration centering around historic Trinity Church at the head of Wall Street. Washington will be represented by the Washington Chorus, whose music director, Julian Wachner, is also director of music and the principal conductor of the Trinity Choir and the Trinity Baroque Orchestra.
“We’ve been preparing for this 9/11 event for more than a year,” he said. “We came up with the idea to bring together choruses from all four affected areas and alternate their performances at Trinity throughout the day with a combined choir in the evening to set the tone.”
| Onstage |
| The Washington Chorus in ‘Remember to Love,’ commemorating 9/11 |
| Where: Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York City |
| When: 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Friday |
| Info: All concerts free and open to the public |
The first concert by TWC occurs in Trinity Church at 11 a.m. Friday and features Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Vespers.” At 1 p.m., they will sing Gabriel Faure’s “Cantique de Jean Racine” and the “Requiem” of Maurice Durufle.
The final concert of the day features TWC, the Copley Singers from Massachusetts, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Pa., the Young People’s Chorus of New York and Wachner’s Trinity Choir with their conductors sharing the podium and backed by the NOVUS NY orchestra. The program of Faure’s “Requiem,” Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms” and Randall Thompson’s “Last Words of King David” also includes moving excerpts from works by Brahms, Bach and others.
“The logistics of preparing for our final concert has involved separate rehearsals,” Wachner said. “We’ll meet together for the first time Friday morning. I’m confident, considering the levels of the groups involved, that it will come together perfectly. We’ll have a total of 250 in the choruses. Trinity Church seats only 800, so the concert will be televised at satellite locations throughout the city for the thousands wishing to hear it.”
Wall Street’s week of “Remember to Love” is not just for New York City residents. Visitors from all over the world are expected to honor those who lost their lives on 9/11.
Trinity Church has been in the same location on Wall Street since 1697 and is the pulse of Lower Manhattan. Having survived the city’s Great Fire in 1776, it is known as “the little chapel that stood.” George Washington was one of its many parishioners. When the World Trade Center collapsed, it was a place of refuge for the 14,000 volunteers and rescue workers.
