Benedict Sheehan - Ukrainian War Requiem
Axios Men's Ensemble; Pro Coro Canada; Michael Zaugg
Cappella Records CR432 SACD (axioschoir.com)
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, 2022 American Benedict Sheehan received a commission from Edmonton’s Axios Men’s Ensemble, performers of Eastern European sacred music, many of its singers sharing Ukrainian roots. Sheehan was asked, he writes, for “a new composition in honor of those fallen in Ukraine’s struggle for freedom.”
Sheehan’s Ukrainian War Requiem was premiered in Edmonton on April 14, 2024 with the Axios Men’s Ensemble and the tenors and basses of Edmonton’s Pro Coro Canada conducted by Pro Coro’s artistic director, Swiss-born Michael Zaugg.
In keeping with Ukraine’s mixed religious heritage – Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish – Sheehan drew texts from the Ukrainian Memorial Service, hymns of St. John of Damascus, Psalms 50 and 90, the New Testament Gospels and the Latin Requiem Mass. He combined, he says, “a variety of musical influences, including Ukrainian and Galician plainchant (somoilka), Gregorian chant, a Ukrainian Jewish psalm tone (nusach) and an array of original melodies,” as well as Shche Ne Vmerla Ukraïna (Ukraine Has Not Yet Perished), Ukraine’s national anthem.
Throughout the work’s 67 minutes, the richly sonorous men’s chorus sings with fervent urgency in Ukrainian, Latin and English, several choristers contributing solos; the major solos are sung by Ukrainian soprano Yuliia Kasimova and Canadian tenor John Tessier. Based on traditional church modes, Sheehan’s powerful, often heart-rendingly beautiful score is a loving tribute to the Ukrainian dead that deserves to be heard everywhere in remembrance of all victims of all wars.
