2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of both Robert F. Kennedy and my father, the composer Frank Lewin. On Sunday, May 4 at 3:00 PM at Rutgers Presbyterian Church (236 West 73rd Street in Manhattan), Matthew Lewis will lead St. George's Choral Society in the New York premiere of Requiem for Robert F. Kennedy (Mass for the Dead, in English), which was composed in 1969. Also on the program are The Peaceable Kingdom by Randall Thompson and Amy Beach's Canticle of the Sun.

My father's inspiration for this Requiem was rooted in a tragic historical event. On June 5, 1968, Kennedy, then a U.S. Senator from New York, was shot in Los Angeles after delivering a victory speech following the California Democratic presidential primary. He died the next day. On June 8, his funeral was held in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, and then a special train carried his body to Washington, DC for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Like many who lived in Princeton, NJ, the Lewin family went to watch the funeral train go by. The sight of that train, and the hundreds of people waiting for hours in the sun to pay their respects, led Frank Lewin to compose the piece. It includes a beautiful Lord's Prayer, which he composed as his mother was dying.

Six years earlier, the Second Vatican Council had decreed that Catholic services should be conducted in the vernacular -- the language of the worshipping people -- rather than Latin, as had been the custom, so this was one of the first Requiems composed with the text in English. Frank Lewin's goal was to set the words in a natural and expressive way, with the music heightening the meaning of the text without overpowering it.

Mass for the Dead was first performed at a memorial service for Robert F. Kennedy on May 27, 1969, at the Princeton University Chapel. Musical forces included the Princeton High School Choir; my sister Naomi was a member of that group, and she will speak briefly at the concert. Naomi says she never asked Dad, but can imagine that the fact that he and Kennedy were the same age, and shared similar hopes for the country, played a role in his motivation to compose this Requiem.

For more information on the composer: www.franklewin.net. For tickets: www.stgeorgeschoralsociety.org.