Pittsburgh-area students to sing 'Requiem' in memory of covid victims

Choirs from six Pittsburgh-area high schools will join Pittsburgh Concert Chorale for a special online performance of Mozart’s “Requiem” in memory of lives lost to covid-19.

Participating schools include Mt. Lebanon, Seneca Valley, Shaler Area, South Fayette, Upper St. Clair and Woodland Hills, along with a smaller group of singers from Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School.

“It’s our gift to the community,” said Susan Medley, PCC music director. “Covid has impacted every life in some way, but there are so many whose lives will never be the same.”

The free performance will premiere at 8 p.m. Friday at pccsing.org.

PCC hosts an annual choral festival for high school groups in the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland, which was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. The chorale traditionally performs a classical piece for its spring concert.

This performance is a kind of combination of those two events, Medley said.

“This is a time that the world needs music more than ever, and (‘Requiem’) seemed like an appropriate piece at this time,” Medley said. “It’s one of those pieces that you’re never quite the same after you sing it, and our hope is to offer this to the community to give people some peace and comfort.”

Mozart composed the piece late in his life, when he received an anonymous commission for a funeral requiem.

“His health was deteriorating and he believed he had been cursed to write a requiem as a ‘swan song’ for himself, because he was sure he was about to die,” according to classicfm.com.

The piece was incomplete when Mozart died at 35 in 1791, and was finished according to the composer’s instructions by one of his students.

“It’s going to be a really interesting work, and it’s also going to show the really heroic work being done by these high school conductors to be able to continue making music during this time,” Medley said.

Each high school choir will sing one of the work’s movements, then all six will join with PCC and the Lincoln Park group for the final movement.

Each group has recorded video of its piece to be layered with videos of the orchestra and soloists.

Groups whose schools have in-person classes were able to perform together. Those with remote learning recorded what Medley called their “Brady Bunch faces” in grids on Zoom.

“It’s the first time (PCC members) have made music together in almost a year,” Medley said. “This was a way to involve a lot of people in a project and feel a sense of unity.”

Medley said she is editing the final product.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she joked. “It proves that you can teach an old dog new tricks, but these are skills I hope I never have to use again once this is all over.”

Following the premiere, the performance will remain on the PCC website for viewers to access at their leisure, Medley said.