In 2010, a seed was planted for an extended choral/orchestral work now entitled Requiem for Colour. For nearly eleven years, bits and pieces of musical themes and ideas were jotted down on post-it notes before being tacked to board or placed on the “dream wall.” These ideas simmered in my heart and mind until January 2022 when I embarked on a journey that would revisit the conflicts and successes of the Black race through a Requiem – a mass for the dead. What resulted is a musical, literary, and visual journey that begins in West Africa and ends in present-day North America.

This requiem will provide an aesthetic experience celebrating West African culture before traveling the perilous journey across the Atlantic, recounting slavery and sharecropping in the South, revisiting Civil Rights of the 60s, and reckoning with our current societal vices of racism and injustice. Narratives from the enslaved, sharecroppers and contemporary activists will be incorporated into the libretto. In summation, Requiem for Colour will honor the lives and legacies of enslaved blacks from 1619 to 1865 (1867), and our contemporary Black martyrs who offered themselves as a sacrifice for equality and freedom.