St. Luke’s to present the Requiem of Maurice Duruflé on November 8 at 7 pm

On Sunday, November 8, at 7 pm, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Friends of Music at St. Luke’s will present the Requiem, Op. 9 by the great French organist-composer Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986) in our Remembrance Sunday Requiem Eucharist in Jackson, Tennessee, sung by the St. Luke’s Evensong Choir, consisting of our parish choir and friends from the larger Jackson community who enjoy singing choral masterworks with us.

We are delighted to welcome returning soloists baritone Scott Bearden and soprano Esther Gray for this performance, along with organist Dr. Richard Townley, FAGO of St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis, Tennessee and members of the Jackson Symphony, conducted by Jeffrey Hoffman, Director of Music at St. Luke’s Church.

Maurice Gustave Duruflé (1902-1986) was born in Louviers, Normandy in 1902. His early musical education began in the choir school of the Rouen Cathedral, also in Normandy, where he learned to play the piano and organ. When he was 17, he moved to Paris to study organ with Charles Tournemire and serve as his assistant at the Basilica of Saint Clotilde. In 1920, he entered the Paris Conservatory, where he was at the top of his class as an organ student of Eugène Gigout and a composition student of Paul Dukas. In 1927, Louis Vierne nominated him as an assistant organist at Notre Dame Cathedral, and when Vierne died mid-recital at the console of Notre Dame in 1937, Duruflé was there serving as his console assistant. In 1929, Duruflé was appointed the titular organist of Paris’s Saint-Étienne-du-Mont church, where he served until an unfortunate automobile accident in 1977 robbed him of his abilities to play.

A lifelong, hyper-critical perfectionist, Duruflé published very few works and continued to revise the few he did publish post-publication. The Requiem, Op. 9, was begun in 1941 under a commission from the Vichy government. Completed in 1947, the work is based upon the familiar Gregorian chant melodies of the Roman Catholic funeral mass, with a lush, harmonically rich, symphonic accompaniment for the organ and a chamber orchestra. Duruflé published three different versions of this accompaniment, one for organ and solo ’cello, one for organ with chamber orchestra, and a full symphonic orchestration. (St Luke’s will feature this chamber orchestration in our performance). This is dramatic music: listening carefully, a listener might discern an evocation of the sound of WW II bombers flying low during the singing of the text of the Dies Irae. The Sanctus evokes an effervescent celestial paradise with choirs of angels singing around the throne of the Lamb of God, and the In paradisum sets the ancient chant melody to a sumptuous harmonic treatment in the choir and orchestra.

Like Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, Op. 48, which was last year’s featured Requiem for All Souls’ Day, Duruflé’s features extensive baritone solos and, in this case, a mezzo-soprano soloist singing Pié Jesu. This beautiful Requiem is an enduring choral masterwork of the early 20th century and a beloved choral setting of these ancient prayers for the repose of all souls.

Baritone Scott Bearden is a past Winner of the Chester Ludgin Verdi Baritone Competition in New York City as well as a Winner and Audience Favorite of the Irene Dalis Voice Competition in

San Jose, California. Mr Bearden has sung many of the Dramatic Italian operatic roles of composer Giuseppe Verdi, including the title roles of Rigoletto and Falstaff, the latter at the Tanglewood Music Festival under the baton of Maestro Seiji Ozawa. His Verdian roles include Conte di Luna in Il Trovatore, Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera, Amonasro in Aida, Germont in La Traviata and Iago in Otello. Other roles of note include Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca, Michele in Il Tabarro and Tonio in I Pagliacci. Mr. Bearden can be heard on the Vox Classics recording of Britten’s Albert Herring and as the tile role of The Secret Agent, based on a novel by Joseph Conrad and composed by Michael Dellaira. He has performed some forty operatic roles with leading national opera companies including San Francisco Opera, Opera Boston, Opera San Jose, Knoxville Opera, Toledo Opera and Opera New Jersey, among many others. Mr Bearden is an Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. He is a graduate of Central Michigan University and the Manhattan School of Music. He, his wife Wendy, and their dachshund Mabel Rae reside in Monticello, Arkansas.

Soprano Esther Gray is a graduate of the Indiana University Jacob’s School of Music in Voice Performance and of Austin Peay State University, where she studied with Martina Arroyo and Dr. Sharon Mabry respectively.  She is Associate Professor of Music at Jackson State Community College and Conductor of the Innovation Vocal Ensemble.  She has also served on the vocal faculty at Union University and Bethel University and has an active private voice studio in Jackson, Tennessee.  Esther was the Founding Conductor of the Jackson Symphony Children’s Choir from 2021-2023 and conducted the JSO during Holiday Pops concerts.  Esther was given an “Outstanding Teacher of the Year” award by the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts and received a Sterling Award, as one of West Tennessee’s Most Influential Women.  As an active recitalist and performer of contemporary classical musical, she has been featured locally as soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra. She has been a featured soloist with Luna Nova Music of Memphis.  In musical theatre, she was seen locally in Memphis with Playhouse on the Square as Franca in the Regional Premiere of The Light in the Piazza for which she was nominated for the Ostrander Award for “Best Supporting Actress in a Musical”. Esther has been seen with the Lyric Opera of San Diego, Harrower Opera Workshop of Atlanta and locally with the Jackson Symphony and the Dixie Carter Performing Arts Center, where she has served as musical director. She is also a yoga teacher (ERYT 500), holding the highest certification recognized nationally, with over 1800 hours of training, and 20 years of teaching experience.  Esther, her husband Matt Brown, and daughter Sophia love living in the country with their chickens and Goldendoodle, Hazel Mae.  

Richard S. Townley is the Organist – Choirmaster of St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Memphis, Tennessee.  A retired attorney, Richard is privileged to now devote his time and energy to making great sacred music.  Richard attended the University of Missouri where he earned the Bachelor of Music degree in 1991 and the Master of Music degree in 1994.  He completed graduate study at Duke University where he was awarded the Ph.D. in music in 2000.  Richard is also an alum of the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis, where he received his J.D. magna cum laude in 2009.  Dr. Townley has served as a professional musician in Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches in Missouri, North Carolina, and Tennessee for approximately 31 years, including here at St. Luke’s Church.  He is a past Dean of the Durham / Chapel Hill Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, holds the Fellowship (F.A.G.O.) and ChoirMaster (Ch.M.) certifications from the Guild, and is a two-time winner of the S. Lewis Elmer Award.  

Jeffrey Hoffman, Organist & Director of Music at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, came to Jackson in 2025 after many years in New York City, having served for many years at Christ Episcopal Church, Pelham, New York and previously at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church on Staten Island, where he formed the internationally known Music at St. Alban’s classical concert series in response to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, and the chamber orchestra Sinfonia Celestis, with which he presented many choral and chamber symphonic masterworks over the years.

Known for his adventurous and wide-ranging programming of choral masterworks within the context of liturgy as well as in concert settings, Hoffman brings a broad knowledge of the choral, orchestral, and musical theater repertoire and a wealth of experience in churches, concert halls, and theaters to his work here in Jackson. Early in his career, he was assistant organist to two of the nation’s prominent liturgical organist-composers, Robert J. Powell and Charles Callahan, both now of blessed memory. He is an alumnus of Manhattan School of Music, where he studied classical composition with Giampaolo Bracali, organ with Alec Wyton, and choral and orchestral conducting with Amy Kaiser and David Gilbert.