When Wollongong composer John Peterson was commissioned to write a work for Sydney Philharmonia Choirs in 2004, the shock and horror of the 11 September, 2001 attacks in America was still strong in the public psyche. So much so that in the first part of his requiem, Shadows and Light, for choir, orchestra and solo soprano and tenor, he included headlines such as “car bomb kills seven” and “slaughtered children, in the name of the Father” interspersed with Latin text.

For the middle section he used paraphrased quotes from the 20th Century Japanese writer Jun’ichirō Tanizaki about the “magic of shadows” – on how Westerners will try to banish shadows from a room by using more light whereas Japanese people find shadows provide comfort and a more natural environment.

And for the final movement he quotes Martin Luther King: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.”

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs: Fauré’s Requiem. Photo © Simon Crossley-Meates

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