Grant Them Eternal Rest was commissioned by Andrew Mast and the St. Ambrose University Symphonic Band and is dedicated to those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. The piece follows the general outline of a requiem mass, but without voices, including five movements: Introit, Kyrie, Dies Irae, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.

Dr. Mast and I are good friends and I was extremely honored when he asked me to write a piece for him and his ensemble. Over the course of several months, he and I discussed various approaches to the commission and eventually we settled on a multi-movement work that would reflect various aspects of childhood. I began to play around with some ideas and to search for poetic texts that might influence the piece.

I was almost ready to begin the work and spent part of the September 8-9 weekend finalizing ideas. All of that changed, of course, on the eleventh. The overwhelming emotions that I experienced on that Tuesday were something that I had never before experienced in relationship to an event outside of my personal sphere. I can't begin to explain them. I simply knew that I wanted to express them somehow. Dr. Mast agreed that changing the focus of the piece might be a worthy and appropriate thing to do, so I set to work on the new plan.

The concept behind the piece is expressed clearly in the title. I have no interest in exploring or re-living the moments of that day. Instead, the work is simply a prayer to bless those who died so needlessly. The pitch material for the piece is taken primarily from the Dies Irae and a chord progression that I originally sketched for possible use in my Symphony No. 2 for baritone, winds and percussion. The text under the original passage was "Lord, have mercy" and I felt a connection between the material and my thoughts about the piece.

Each movement is intended to reflect the text of the requiem mass, with the Dies Irae movement forming the centerpiece and giving the whole piece an arch form. I eliminated some of the movements of the traditional requiem mass so that the work as a whole would have a balanced effect. Instead, I chose the five movements whose text most accurately reflected the emotions that I wished to convey.