- Oratorio ‘Requiem for the Fallen’ -

- Concerto for piano and concert band ‘Destination west’ -

- Cantata ‘The Bells of Hope’ -

- Left Hand Piano Concerto ‘Between War and Peace’ -

- Piano Toccatas ‘Exultate’ & ‘Resolve and Pride’ -

A sense of respect and the search for happiness link these works.

‘Imagine New York’, the first Piano Concerto evoking Freedom and the Statue of Liberty, opened a concert for peace, in 2021. This followed the 2018 premiere of the Concerto for Piano and Band ‘Destination West’, where the imagery of the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad symbolizes the unification of America.

Decades before becoming a composer, as a Belgian teenager, I rode my bike through the crosses of Flanders’ war cemeteries after having read the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ written during WWI. Much later, with these memories still lingering on my mind, I composed ‘Requiem for the Fallen’ an oratorio for soprano, choir and orchestra on ‘In Flanders Fields’, as a tribute to the victims of WWI and WWII.

The first version of the Oratorio was also played in 2018 in southwest France for the Centennial of WWI. Most of the town’s youth orchestra players had a relative who had fought in that war.

A year later, the large version of the Oratorio premiered at Carnegie Hall, with the Consul of Belgium in attendance. More performances took place in Moscow: In 2020, the U.S. Embassy underwrote a concert to commemorate the cooperation in WWII. In late 2021, a public concert for peace took place in a major art gallery downtown. Afterwards, guests waved ‘heart’ and ‘I love you’ hand signs over Zoom to us in Washington and an Orthodox Bishop, pointing to the golden cross on his chest, called the Oratorio ‘Music for Peace’.

After the tragic military invasion of Ukraine, ten weeks later, and the unfathomable suffering and degradation that this war is causing to this date, I decided that, by contrast, all my new compositions would express hope and respect. Among them are the joyful Concerto for Alto Saxophone & Strings ‘Springtime in Chicago’; the Cantata ‘The Bells of Hope’ for soprano, choir and orchestra, based on poems by Native Americans on the theme of respect; the joyful piano Toccata ‘Exultate’ for the left hand and its larger variant ‘Resolve and Pride’ for both hands; and the second Piano Concerto ‘Between War and Peace’ also for left hand. The last movement of the Concerto is an engaging and uplifting ‘Bolero for Peace’. . *** Videos of the Oratorio ‘Requiem for the Fallen’, the Piano Concerto ‘Imagine New York’ and other works are posted under VIDEOS. Since 2023, pandemic and wars have prevented additional events.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our places; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
in Flanders Fields.

by: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae
MD (1872 – 1918)
Canadian Army