An African American Requiem

In composing his epic, moving Requiem, Damien Geter was inspired by those composed earlier by Mozart, Berlioz, Brahms, and especially Verdi. Within the traditional Latin text, Geter’s Requiem weaves the words of victims of lynching and of those who dared speak out. “A Requiem memorializes a person,” Geter has stated. “We need to memorialize these folks in some way, to keep their names alive. And this is the way I choose to honor them.”