Posted on: Tuesday, September 10, 2002

Hawai'i joins worldwide memorial performance

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

'Rolling Requiem' • 8:46 a.m. tomorrow; arrive by 8:30 a.m. for a blessing and a moment of quiet reflection. • Kawaiaha'o Church • 595-3043, 395-1775, or www.rollingrequiem.org

Soprano Ella Edwards first heard about tomorrow's global "Rolling Requiem" on a Joe Moore newscast. Then she got an e-mail at the end of July and was astounded that nobody here had planned to join the effort, performing Mozart's "Requiem" at 8:46 a.m. local time, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Ella and I felt strongly that we should be involved," said Betsy McCreary, a fellow singer, who took on the task of organizing the Masterworks Chorale of Hawai'i, a one-time gathering of more than 115 voices from choruses all over O'ahu. "The response has been tremendous. We've had to turn away singers because of limited space.

"We were to be the last of 20 time zones participating, beginning with New Zealand, but Samoa has come aboard, so we're next to the last," McCreary said.

The concerts will follow the sun around the world, intending to provide 24 hours of musical unity, reflection and solace.

All singers will wear heart-shaped badges featuring the name of a victim. Hawai'i's badges have a lei border.

To amass singers, McCreary called the Honolulu Symphony chorus, the Lutheran choir, the opera chorus — "anybody interested in singing the 'Requiem'," she said. She recruited a rainbow of voices and faces, reflecting Hawai'i's many ethnicities:

Caucasian, Asian, African American, Hawaiian and other Polynesian backgrounds.

She enlisted her daughter, Susan M. Duprey, director of choral activities at Hawai'i Pacific University, to conduct; and her husband, John S. McCreary, organist emeritus of St. Andrew's Cathedral, to play the organ.

Kawaiaha'o Church donated rehearsal space and its church for the actual performance.

Soloists quickly emerged: Malia Kaai, a Kawaiaha'o soprano; Lorna Mount, an opera veteran and soprano who teaches at the Unitarian Church; Ella Edwards, a singer at Central Union Church; Joseph Pettit, a tenor who also is organist at Central Union; and Timothy Carney, a baritone, who is with the Hawai'i Vocal Arts Ensemble and Chaminade University.

Virginia Lowell, state librarian, heard about the chorale and offered to provide resources for the official badge that each singer will wear.

"If there's one thing evolving in this effort, it's the great willingness of everyone to contribute," said McCreary. "Whether it's singing, time, a space, or a badge, we've had great cooperation."

Organizers hope to videotape the concert for a documentary. Worldwide, about 15,000 singers from 24 countries and 43 states, representing 20 time zones, will participate in 170 performances of the Requiem.