ACDA Reverberations 1: Choral Music of Zdenek Lukas

There is much to be said about the recent national ACDA convention in Miami. In short, I loved it for everything that an ACDA convention can be. I hope that this blog will be a place to feature many of the wonderful events, concerts, conversations, and discoveries.

I'm quite sure that my contributions will be random--today is on the composer Zdeněk Lukáš. I heard his short unaccompanied Requiem by the University of Mississippi Concert Singers and found it to be a stunning work. I had heard portions of it before, but this was the first time I heard it in it's entirety. (Actually, Ole Miss didn't perform the entire work. Don Trott kindly pointed out that he only performed five of the seven movements. I’m going to take a short break from blogging and review my music history.)

Ole Miss did a fabulous job with their aggressive performance of the work. I had a chance to personally commend Don Trott on the groups exciting singing. Trott called it a perfect opening work . . . and I strongly agree.

As I looked to purchase the Requiem, I saw that it was published by Alliance Publications. This is NOT the Alliance that is based in Texas (also a very fine company). This is the Alliance Publications, INC based in Wisconsin.

I called Wisconsin's Alliance and spoke with Anita Smīsek who told me that the work was composed immediately after the composer had lost an orchestrated version of the very same text. Somehow, the composer either lost or had his briefcase stolen on a trip to a larger city. In his dismay, he returned home and wrote the Requiem that I am so fascinated with today.

Zdeněk Lukáš deserves to be better known in the world of choral music--at least in the United States! Read more about him here (scroll down for the English version) and recordings are available here.