Echoes – What is this program about?

In anticipation of Echoes, I’ve been listening to recordings of the repertoire, but I haven’t yet experienced the San Diego Master Chorale performing it live. When I heard them sing Brahms’ Requiem last spring, the music stayed with me long after the concert. This fall, my mother will be among the singers bringing Echoes to life, and I know it will move me in ways I can’t yet imagine. 

The experience is more than simply listening to music. It generates a powerful energetic current that cannot be replicated in recordings. On April 26, 2025, the day before my 6-year old daughter and I attended the Brahms Requiem concert, we spread my late husband’s ashes over the Pacific Ocean by Sunset Cliffs.

Mourning is a strange and surreal place to exist. Sometimes I feel that there are unspoken expectations put on grievers to grieve a certain way at a certain time. Some of us may feel the tension of continuing to live joyfully while also feeling misunderstood in how we express our grief. Grievers might feel isolated in our silent grief, where we do not feel comfortable or less inclined to make others uncomfortable by sharing about our loved ones. Some days privacy feels right. Other days not so much. Some days grief can feel like a marathon, other days like an Olympic sprint. My grief has had to encompass the range of my emotions and energy, not all sadness and fatigue, and not all focused on our happiest memories. 

What does it mean to grieve communally? To me it means to remember, with love and joy as well as sadness, those who have already lived their lives before us as we come together in community. This music is not limited to grief though. I will grieve, but I will also feel Dominic’s presence. He will be alive through art. That is what Día de los Muertos is — a day when our loved ones become alive again.

Día de los Muertos is not a part of my cultural heritage, and this place doesn’t belong to me. But I do belong to this place. I have become a part of this place, which is a part of Mexico as much as it is a part of the United States. And I welcome and embrace the opportunity to share my grief, my love, and my remembrance with my musical community.

RIP Dominic Tarantino, March 17,1977—November 15, 2023.

— Dia Bassett, SD Master Chorale Audience & Engagement Coordinator