REQUIEM RETURNS TO ST. LUKE’S

“Requiem: What Remains is Love” returns this Friday, Nov. 3

“Requiem: What Remains is Love” concert at St. Luke’s Roman Catholic Church, 1241 State Street, at 7 p.m. Written and composed by Maria Riccio Bryce, an Amsterdam musician, composer and music director for over 25 years at St. Luke’s. (Provided photo)

“Requiem: What Remains is Love” is back by popular demand.

The 75-minute, Requiem concert comes back to St. Luke’s Church, 1241 State Street, this Friday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. Written and composed by Maria Riccio Bryce, an Amsterdam musician, composer and music director for over 25 years at St. Luke’s, the concert first premiered at St. Luke’s last November. After an overwhelming response to the performance, Riccio Bryce decided to bring it back. 

“That performance was a triumph,” she said. “I was thrilled — and deeply touched — by the response it received. Following the premiere, many people reached out to tell me how comforted and inspired they had been by the Requiem. And many people expressed a desire to hear it again!”

Focusing on death and the questions of our own mortality, “What Remains is Love” uses the framework of a traditional Requiem Mass with Ricco Bryce’s songs and score work interspersed throughout the piece. The chorus consists of 24 singers and a handful of close friends and family who have worked with the composer throughout the years.

“I am so deeply proud of the Chorus who sings my Requiem!” Riccio Bryce added. “Each of their voices is wonderful, and when they join them together, the sound they make is truly sublime. I am honored by the way the performers have so generously lavished the gift of their talent upon my work.”

After its initial release, the Requiem went on a “Memorial Tour” in May, performing at three different churches in the Capital District over Memorial Day weekend. Now, Riccio Bryce hopes to make the concert a fall tradition. 

“It is my hope to make a performance of my Requiem an annual event at St. Luke’s, on the first Friday in November,” she said. “I feel that St. Luke’s is its ‘home,’ since it was largely my  experiences as Music Director at St. Luke’s that inspired me to create the Requiem.”

Added Riccio Bryce: “I am very excited, and so honored, to have the opportunity to share my Requiem with all those who attend the performance on Friday. As I wrote the Requiem, I strove to create both a hymn to the living — a celebration of both the monumental beauty and anguish of being alive, here, in the world —-  and a Farewell, to those whom we loved, who have left us. I hope so much that people will hear the mystery and feel the solace.”