To mark the tenth anniversary, Haig Mardirosian, the dean of the University of Tampa’s College of Arts and Letters, will perform an organ concert “In Memoriam 9/11” at the UT Sykes Chapel and Center for Faith and Values. The concert is free and open to the public and will take place on Sunday, Sept. 11, at 2 p.m. The concert is a part of this academic year’s Concert Artist Series in the Sykes Chapel. It will include performances from the works of Leo Sowerby, César Franck, Dan Locklair, J.S. Bach, Samuel Barber and Joseph Jongen by a famous Romanian string quartet, a well-renowned pianist from South Africa, and the organist of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, France.
Coincidentally, while looking at the calendar to decide on when to schedule the performance, Mardirosian noticed the tenth anniversary of Sept. 11. That day had personal meaning for Mardirosian. Having lived previously in Washington, DC, his own home was directly under the flight path of the incoming insurgent airplanes, in which he lost two of his high school classmates. It was clear to him that, “performing on this sad anniversary would be an opportunity to program great music on the themes of loss, the memory of those departed, heroism, optimism, peace, reconciliation, and transcendence.”
Continuing with that theme, Mardirosian decided to choose works that encompassed the “stark depictions of terror, death, fire, and twisted steel, to an ardent plea for peace and consolation, to a jubilant finale suggest the triumph of good over evil.”
Mardirosian explained, “I am asking the audience for no applause, but simply to let this music speak for the complex and profound feelings on this particular day.”