{"id":6438,"date":"2011-09-19T10:14:38","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T10:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=6438"},"modified":"2011-09-19T02:54:51","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T02:54:51","slug":"j-a-c-redfords-rest-now-my-sister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/j-a-c-redfords-rest-now-my-sister\/","title":{"rendered":"J.A.C. Redford’s Rest Now, My Sister"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Composer<\/a>

Composer J.A.C. Redford<\/p><\/div>\n

by Becky Durham<\/p>\n

In 1935 composer Herbert Howells lost his nine-year-old son Michael to meningitis.\u00a0 To make his way through his grief he turned, not surprisingly, to music.\u00a0 In his own words: \u201cThe sudden loss in 1935 of an only son, a loss essentially profound and, in its very nature, beyond argument, might naturally impel a composer, after a time, to seek release and consolation in language and terms most personal to him. Music may well have the power beyond any other medium to offer that release and comfort.\u201d Contemporary composer Jennifer Higdon composed a piece called \u201cblue cathedral\u201d in 1999 following the death of her brother who had suffered from melanoma.\u00a0 She says, \u201cI began writing this piece at a unique juncture in my life and found myself pondering the question of what makes a life. The recent death of my younger brother, Andrew Blue, made me reflect on the amazing journeys that we all make in our lives, crossing paths with so many individuals singularly and collectively, learning and growing each step of the way. This piece represents the expression of the individual and the group\u2014our inner travels and the places our souls carry us, the lessons we learn, and the growth we experience.\u201d\u00a0 In the 19th century Johannes Brahms composed the lovely \u201cNanie\u201d as a tribute to his friend, painter Anselm Feuerbach, who passed away in 1880 and Bedrich Smentana looked to the intimacy of chamber music when he composed his Trio in G Minor \u201cwritten in memory of my first child, Bedriska, who enchanted us with her extraordinary musical talent, and yet was snatched away from us by death, aged 4 1\/2 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surely there have been hundreds of musical tributes, memorials, and homages composed and dedicated to loved ones over the years. Utah Chamber Artists is honored to perform just such a personal expression at our Collage Concerts, \u201cChant and Contemplation\u201d this week. Our musicians have approached this work humbly and with an earnest intent to represent the composer\u2019s vision and to realize the anguish, pain, solace, and peace found in the words and notes.<\/p>\n

J.A.C\u00a0 and LeAnn Redford and their family faced unimaginable tragedy last December when LeAnn\u2019s sister, Kristine Gabel Allred was murdered. Redford looked to words initially, as he says, to \u201cto deal with my own grief and console my wife\u201d.\u00a0 He wrote a sonnet and then subsequently married those words with music.\u00a0 Redford\u2019s poem, \u201cRest Now, My Sister is painfully true to the circumstances of her death, yet as he moves through heartbreak he finds the means to summon peace. The tender counsel \u201crest, now my sister\u201d, repeated throughout the work, offers healing consolation and hope.\u00a0 Redford bookends his poem with the Latin, \u201cRequiescat in pace. Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat ei\u201d and sets that text to a solo chant melody.<\/p>\n

In the body of the poem Redford implements the imagery of birds to communicate his ideas.
\nHe explains he is influenced by poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, particularly the poem \u201cPeace\u201d. \u201cWhen will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut, Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs? When, when, Peace, will you, Peace?\u201d\u00a0 In his own poem, Redford references the \u201cwooddove\u201d. \u201c\u2026let the wild wood dove light to chant its peace, release its healing store.\u201d (Here, he also recalls the \u201cchant\u201d he employs earlier in the piece, whereas in the chant portion of the work he foreshadows the upcoming bird imagery with ascending triplets in the orchestra accompaniment evoking their flight). There is also a nod to Dylan Thomas when Redford, unlike Thomas\u2019s admonition, \u201cpray[s] that that my sister’s soul may indeed \u2018go gentle into that good night\u2019 after a death of such unimaginable violence.\u201d\u00a0 Other symbols the composer draws upon are the kite, a bird of prey and finally the phoenix that rises from the ashes re-born, often a symbol for Christ.<\/p>\n

\u201cRest Now, My Sister\u201d is a solemn, courageous and loving tribute to Kristine. J.A.C. Redford, brother-in-law and composer offers her \u2013 and others who hear his piece — an exquisite; a genuine response to her death and to her life. Just as other composers and artists have turned to what they know best to assuage their feelings, JAC has taken an act of destruction and answered it with an act of creation.<\/p>\n

In 1991 musician Eric Clapton worked through the torment of losing his 4 \u00bd year-old son who had tragically fallen from a 49-story building in New York City by writing \u201cTears in Heaven.\u201d\u00a0 When asked if it was \u201ctough\u201d to write the song he replied, \u201cThe writing of the song is the therapy. The toughness is doing nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rest Now, My Sister
\nin memory of Kristine Marie Allred Gabel (1965-2010)<\/p>\n

Requiescas in pace, soror mea.
\nRequiem aeternam dona ei, Domine:
\net lux perpetua luceat ei.
\nRequiescas in pace.<\/p>\n

Rest now, my sister, rest from every fear
\nof carrion kite that dove on ragged wing
\nto rend with bitter claw, from every tear
\nof shame, my sister, rest from everything.
\nRest now, and let the wild wood dove light
\nto chant its peace, release its healing store,
\nto ease you gentle into that good night
\nwhere sting and talon trouble you no more.
\nO sister, rest, and let the phoenix rise
\nfrom ash and cinder, smoking in the ring.
\nWhere heat once rose to beat against the skies
\nwith longing fierce, O let the phoenix sing.
\nFor birdsong now may weave its golden nest
\nand heart unclenched at last may learn its rest.<\/p>\n

Requiescas in pace, soror mea.
\nRequiem aeternam dona ei, Domine:
\net lux perpetua luceat ei.
\nRequiescas in pace.<\/p>\n

J.A.C. Redford
\nJanuary 2011<\/p>\n

Rest Now, My Sister by J.A.C. Redford will be performed as part of the Utah Chamber Artists’ Chat & Contemplation Cathedral Collage performances at the Cathedral of the Madeleine Monday, September 19 and Tuesday, September 20th at 8 pm. The concerts are free. Read more about the concerts in this month’s edition of 15 Bytes.<\/a>
\n<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Utah Chamber Artists Executive Director Becky Durham sends us a post about the premier this Monday and Tuesday of a new work by composer J.A.C. Redford based on the brutal murder of the composer’s sister-in-law last December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,58],"tags":[595,558],"class_list":["post-6438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literary-arts","category-music","tag-j-a-c-redford","tag-utah-chamber-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/JAC_Redford-Formal_BW.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 19:21:43","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6438"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6446,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6438\/revisions\/6446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}