CONSOLATION:

There was one piece of music that was played over and over during the period after 9/11 on classical music radio stations. It was Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridsen. In this choral piece, the overwhelming cascade of voices coalesces and moves deeply into our lament, yet the music rises above the nadir of our common despair and somehow reframes our hopes.

Several years after 9/11, I had an opportunity to reflect on Lauridsen's composition and honor him. I was appointed to the National Council on the Arts by president George W. Bush and worked on the nominations for the 2007 National Medal of the Arts. The council selected Lauridsen as one of the award recipients. I was the table host designated to welcome him to the list of great artists and arts advocates including the likes of Andrew Wyeth and Henry Steinway. Lauridsen's legacy will be known with other great composers who've received this high honor, such as Aaron Copeland and John Williams.

As Lauridsen looked around the room, he said, "What am I doing here?" I responded: "Sir, millions of people sing your songs; I think you deserve this honor."

Lauridsen composes music that the vocal range and singing capacity of a typical community choir can handle; in other words, he makes his music accessible to all. Perhaps that accounts, in part, for the popularity of his music in the classical and choral music world. But how is it that this communal music can carry the weight of our common curse yet manage to infuse hope in us?

My dear friend James Jordan, the master choral director of Westminster Choir College, told me that Lux Aeterna is "a work of sound art that is humanly honest, because of its Gregorian chant roots." It makes sense that some of the text of this choral work was first created out of a community--a community of ordinary saints seeking to renew their daily faith through their monophonic plainchants. Such an integrated, authentic song from a community many centuries past does not fit neatly into our contemporary categories like "secular" or "sacred" or "Christian music." And precisely because it does not, it is a song for eternity that resonates in all areas of human experience, lifting all of us to the heavens in worship.

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