Brahms Requiem in Herrick Chapel

The Grinnell Singers, Grinnell Oratorio Society, and Grinnell Symphony Orchestra will join forces on Sunday, April 30, to perform the Brahms Requiem.

The concert will take place at 2 p.m. in Herrick Chapel, 1128 Park St., Grinnell. The performance is free and open to the public.

Altogether, the choir will be 85 voices strong, including local residents who participate in the Grinnell Oratorio Society. Several members of the Grinnell Singers play in the orchestra in addition to singing, and for this concert they will be playing with the orchestra. The orchestra will have 52 instrumentalists. In addition to the Brahms, the orchestra will also perform Elgar’s Serenade for Strings.

The Brahms Requiem is different from many other requiems, because the work is intended to offer comfort to the living, whereas most requiems focus on praying for the souls of the departed, according to John Rommereim, Blanche Johnson Professor of Music.

“The work is about hope,” he says, “a hope that takes into account the reality of human suffering and mortality. The final word is not a complete sentence, rather it is only a fragment: ‘Blessed, blessed…’ as if listeners were meant to fill in the sentence for themselves.”

Rommereim will direct the concert. “These concerts that combine folks from the community with students, faculty, and staff of the college, are a wonderful way for the college and the community to get together through the medium of music,” he says. “In today’s fractured world, these opportunities for collaboration and connection are to be treasured.”