How the Charlotte Symphony Commemorated 9/11 Through Mozart’s Requiem

September 14, 2026

Lawrence Toppman

By Lawrence Toppman

What’s the right way to honor the nearly 3,000 people who died as a result of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001? To weep afresh? To grieve quietly? To be lost in somber thoughts? To reflect, 25 years later, on our own mortality?

I exercised all four options Friday in a memorial concert by the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and Charlotte Master Chorale, where Stefano Vignati conducted a deeply contemplative version of Wolfgang Mozart’s Requiem. Vignati, Opera Carolina’s general director and music director, capped the Knight Theater concert with Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus,” a welcome three minutes of serenity after nearly an hour of lamentation.

Classical requiems run the gamut from Verdi’s invocation of terror and prayer for liberation to Brahms’ balm for those left behind. Mozart’s, at least in the completion by pupil-collaborator Franz Süssmayr, ends where it began: with “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,” a prayer that God grant the departed eternal rest. That made it fitting music for the victims of 9/11, who were not peace-parted souls.

The conductor set the tone from the start. The music was generally stately and somber; the energy level shot up in the Day of Wrath section and the percolating Sanctus, but the piece had weight even when moving faster.

Vignati wanted us to immerse ourselves in the requiem, rather than float along on top of the lovely music. The sections lived up to their names: The Lacrimosa really was mournful, the Benedictus a humble invocation of blessing. The pace also let listeners hear details that might sometimes be glossed over, such as the articulation of the violins.

The slower speed sometimes taxed the vocal soloists, though they rose to the occasion. Bass Justin Hopkins intoned the long introduction to the Tuba Mirum with remarkable breath control, and tenor Arthur Espiritu delivered a Mors Stupebit as passionate as a Puccinian plea.

“Ave Verum Corpus,” three of the most beautiful minutes Mozart composed, has a similar death-related text: Singers ask “the true body, born of the Virgin Mary” to intercede in the trial of death. Here it provided reassurance that those we lost did not go hopelessly into the void.

Two other thoughts struck me as I listened. First, it was grand to see so many people who don’t normally attend symphony concerts; you could identify them, because they broke into applause during breaks in the requiem, until they got the hang of classical audience protocol.

Second, the concert represented a collaboration between the CSO and Opera Carolina, a jointly presented event rather than the usual case of symphony musicians becoming a pit band for hire in opera productions. Charlotte needs more artistic partnerships, and this one cheered me.