World Premiere Mass of the Eternal Flame – Ēriks Ešenvalds

To mark Robert Simpson’s 25th anniversary as Canon for Music at Christ Church Cathedral, the Cathedral Choir commissioned one of today’s leading composers to write a new Mass setting.

Scored for choir, brass and organ, Mass of the Eternal Flame by Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds will be premiered by the Cathedral Choir at 5 p.m. on Sunday, February 26. The composer will be in attendance.

“I was thrilled, and deeply moved,” Simpson says, “when Dean Thompson and the Cathedral Choir surprised me with the announcement that Ēriks Ešenvalds had been commissioned by them to write a Mass in my honor. Ešenvalds is the composer I would have picked myself. His works are performed around the world. This Mass is stunning, and we are all very excited that he will be with us for the premiere.”

Mass of the Eternal Flame was written during the peak of the COVID pandemic. Its title recalls God’s ever-present Spirit among us, and the inextinguishable human spark that sustained us during that period. It also honors the memory of those we lost by invoking the significance of eternal flames that burn at memorials and grave sites around the world.

The Cathedral Choir, Paragon Brass, and Cathedral Organist Daryl Robinson will record this work in the days following the premiere for a CD that will also feature performances by the Treble Choir of Houston at Christ Church Cathedral, directed by Marianna Parnas-Simpson, and a major new organ work played by Daryl Robinson commissioned by Cathedral Parishioner Charlotte Jones.