From MSU News Service
In preparation for performances at a regional conference in Washington, ensembles from the Montana State University School of Music will perform composer Eric Funk’s “Requiem for a Forest” at Bozeman’s Hope Lutheran Church at 2152 Graf St. on Monday, February 13th.
The program begins at 7pm and tickets are $10 for general admission and free for students. Tickets will be available at the door, and more information can be found through the MSU Calendar.
Funk, a retired faculty member of the School of Music, wrote “Requiem for a Forest” in 2020 after the Bridger Foothills Fire burned more than 8,000 acres in the Bridger Mountains just northeast of Bozeman. The piece was commissioned by the Intermountain Opera and set to original lyrics by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Powers, a longtime friend and collaborator of Funk’s.
The evening will begin with a lecture by Funk at 7pm in Hope Lutheran Church’s Fireside Room, followed by the musical performance at 7:30pm.
Retired Montana State University Proffesor Eric Funk offers guidance to the Montanans choir as they rehearse his composition commemorating the Bridger Foothills fire in Howard Hall on Friday, Oct. 28, 2022, at Montana State University
MSU Photo by Colter Peterson
Funk wrote “Requiem for a Forest” in less than a week. He will outline the creative process involved in composing the piece, which he said began with driving out into the Bridgers after the fire to listen to the sounds of the burned landscape. The piece was originally composed for four vocalists to perform a cappella, but Funk later added arrangements for a small string ensemble and a full orchestra and chorus. It was first performed in that version by “Roots in the Sky” in 2021, an ensemble founded by MSU alum Andrew Major that includes several former Montanans members.
“I just listened with my mind’s ear to whatever sounds came. And a very distinctive line came, and I wrote it down,” said Funk. “I realized what I had was a loop, and by the end of it when I started again, I was a half-step higher than when I started. So each time I do it, I’m a little bit higher, and as it’s getting higher and higher, it’s also getting louder and louder and adding more emotion. It’s growing like a fire grows.”
After Funk’s lecture, the performance will include MSU choral ensembles the Montanans and Voces Luminis conducted by MSU Director of Choral Activities Kirk Aamot; a string quintet led by associate professor Angella Ahn; and the Select Choir from Sacajawea Middle School under the direction of Charlotte Colliver. A film presentation compiled by musician and filmmaker Thomas Thomas will accompany the musical piece, including footage of the Bridgers landscape.
The collegiate vocalists and musicians will then travel to Bellevue, Washington, from Feb. 15th–17th for the National Association for Music Education’s Northwest Conference, where they will perform the piece again for music educators from across the country, including band and choral directors, music teachers and orchestra conductors.
“The students have greatly enjoyed Eric’s moving work, and we look forward to performing his piece here and for a broader audience in the Northwest region of the country,” said Aamot. “We are also very excited to have the Sacajawea Select Choir with us for this concert as well. They are a talented group of young singers, and the Montanans will perform a piece with them at the end of the program.”
While composing “Requiem for a Forest,” Funk asked Powers to write lyrics for the piece, and Powers, who had lived in Bozeman while writing his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Overstory,” immediately jumped at the opportunity, Funk said.
“He brings up the concept of serotiny. The cones on serotinous trees only open at the temperature of a forest fire, so nature has built in this replenishment,” said Funk of Powers’ poetic composition. “The anger is there, but there’s also this little germ of hope and renewal that’s attached to this. It’s horrible to lose so much in a fire, and while it’s specific to this particular forest, it’ll be true of any forest. I think there will be a resonance for anyone. It offers you a chance for grief and despair, but also to breathe through this, a potential to see the movement that’s going on.”
Funk said that with the growing frequency of forest fires across the West, he hopes the piece will resonate with audiences both in Bozeman and across the nation, drawing on the themes of loss and renewal.
Funk, who also will travel to the National Association for Music Education conference, said he hopes the performances illuminate the process of composing music for audience members and that educators will feel empowered to perform it with their own ensembles and in their own communities.
“Our original idea was that the opera companies peppered throughout the West Coast and beyond might be able to pick this up and let it become a means through which they can connect with their audiences around the common issue of fires,” said Funk. “I’m hoping that with this performance in Bellevue, other conductors will realize, ‘We can do this with our group,’ and really give it some momentum. It’ll be great for the country to continue to see how strong the School of Music is at Montana State.” •
