I wrote this sextet for winds and piano over the last two years. So much has been going on in the world that often gets neglected in the arts in favor of performing timeless gems that say nothing about our current state of affairs. While escapism has its time and place, I just got tired of that being the overwhelming majority of our artistic output. In my Requiem for a People, I am seeking musical language to process the pain and suffering in the world. Many of the seven movements confront some underlying condition that I see as leading to some of the great challenges of humanity, while also recognizing the beauty that runs concurrent to the devastation. At times nostalgic, at times iconoclastic, this thirty-five-minute work was a big stretch in my compositional style. Additionally, it requires great virtuosity of all of the players on stage. I am so fortunate to have such phenomenal colleagues at Shenandoah Conservatory. How does a musical ensemble help each other and their audience learn to sit with difficult questions in introspection? How do we learn to sit with grief? Writing this work was one of the more cathartic experiences I have had in my life, and I truly hope it brings some amount of enrichment to all who hear it.
– Stephen Nicholas Key