The University of Connecticut Symphony Orchestra and University of Connecticut Concert Choir, with special guests Chorus Angelicus Children’s Choir of Torrington and soloists Jillian Cowles, treble; Janani Sridhar, soprano; and Gregory Zavracky, tenor, under the direction of Dr Jamie Spillane, will present the premier of the 2013 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Composition Prize-winning new work, A Child’s Requiem by Steven Sametz, Thursday evening, March 5. Mr Sametz is the 2013 winner of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Composition Prize.

The Sackler Prize is “a biennial international award organized through the UConn School of Fine Arts that supports and promotes composers and performance of their new musical works,” according to UConn Today.

A Child’s Requiem is dedicated to those killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on 12/14, according to Mr Sametz’s website.

“On December 14, 2012, images of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Connecticut dominated the news. Chief among them was the photograph of a line of children being out of the school to the nearby fire station. From the time I considered writing a piece to commemorate these children and their teachers, three lines suggested themselves and haunted me recalling that picture:

     “Stay in line…”

     “Hold hands…”

     “Keep your eyes closed…”

“I knew these would be the first intoned words of A Child’s Requiem,” Mr Sametz writes on his website.

The award-winning photo Mr Sametz refers to was one taken by Newtown Bee Associate Editor Shannon Hicks and published within hours of the shooting. It shows a classroom of children and their teachers being led through the school parking lot by a pair of Connecticut State Police troopers.

Mr Sametz reached out to elementary school children nationwide for their responses to tragedy and loss, receiving hundreds of drawings and stories. From these, as well as words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, and his own poetry, he constructed the text for A Child’s Requiem.

There will be a pre-concert lecture by the composer and conductor at 7:15 pm, in the Jorgensen Gallery, with the concert to start at 8 pm.

The concert and lecture will be repeated in Stamford, Saturday, March 7, at The Palace Stamford Center for the Arts. Lecture is at 7:15 pm, the concert begins at 8 pm.

The concert in Storrs will also include a performance of Antonin Dvorak’s Te Deum, under the direction of Prof Harvey Felder, with soloists Constance Rock, soprano and Rod Nelman, bass.

Unticketed admission to both concerts is free, due in part to the generosity of the Sackler family.

For information on the March 5 concert, go to www.Jorgensen.uconn.edu. For the March 7 concert visit www.palacestamford.org.