Premiere of Martin Connor’s “Haitian Requiem”

On April 19th, at 8:30 PM, in Duke Chapel in Durham, NC, there was the premiere of my “Haitian Requiem.” The work is a 9 movement, 35 minute funeral mass set to music memorializing the victims of the Haitian Earthquake that happened in January 2010. It is written for full choir, brass quintet, carillon (the bells in Duke Chapel), and percussion, which includes music written for a traditional Haitian drum ensemble that plays at Vodunist religious rituals. Vodunism is the indigenous religion of Haiti. This work seeks to give hope to those who survived the earthquake while asking for the repose of those who passed away in the traumatic event. Towards this end, there is a dramatic dialogue set-up between the mundane (“earthy”) Haitian Creole language and the transcendant, etheral (“sky”) Latin.

 You can see the video below. Skip to 21:41 to see my lecture before the performance about just what exactly the work is, and how I structured and composed it. Skip to 31:49 for the music, but I strongly suggest you watch the speech.

You can download the movements here, at soundcloud.

Duke decided to do a short news report on the project. You can see it below; it’s a good 4 minute summary of the project.

Please consider donating to Haiti to help the ongoing relief efforts there.

Martin Connor is a music teacher & writer from Philadelphia, PA, with a music degree of high distinction from Duke University who is currently studying for a master’s degree at Brandeis University in Boston, MA, while focusing his research on the vocal melodies of the rap genre. He has contributed freelance articles to HipHopDX, Complex, and Pigeons and Planes, and had multiple articles from his website, www.RapAnalysis.com go viral on BET, The Source, XXL, and MTV. He teaches rap lessons online through the music school LessonFace, and has a book, The Artistry Of Rap Music, forthcoming from the McFarland Publishing House, scheduled for release in late 2017, as a follow-up to his 2014 contribution to their anthology "Eminem & Rap, Poetry, Race." He welcomes all comments, compliments, insults, and restaurant suggestions at [email protected].

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