Inheritances: Composing Sacred Space
Adam Tendler's unexpected inheritance spurs a musical exploration of remembrance and loss
As recounted in his essay in the New York Times, Adam Tendler wasn’t expecting an inheritance after his father died unexpectedly. “My dad,” he writes, “was financially ambiguous and notoriously frugal, so I thought that if there even was one, it would be weird. I was right.”
When his stepmother handed him an envelope full of cash from his father, Adam decided to use the money to commission original work from composers about inheritance, however they chose to define and interpret that.
Two years later 16 composers had created 16 new solo works, in a show presented by Liquid Music that premiered in Minneapolis on April 23. The show then went to Los Angeles on July 10 and then to New York, where it was performed at the 92nd Street Y on March 11.
Adam writes, “I don’t remember much from that Minneapolis premier, aside from a feeling afterward of fulfillment - a rarity for me. The theater seats remained occupied long after the recital ended. People stayed and talked, to one another and to me. Different pieces touched different people in different ways.”
It doesn’t surprise me at all that the show would spark such a connection from the audience. Grief is a universal experience and music allows us a different way to connect to it and process it. To sit in a room with other people and allow ourselves to feel loss and hope, together, has been so rare these last few years. What a gift. Without organized religion and its rituals for grieving, so many of us meet death feeling alone and unmoored. In our culture that prizes speed, distraction and denial, grief can become just one more thing to avoid.
What a beautiful way to use a surprise inheritance. “These pieces,” Adam writes, “felt like bereavement gifts sent from friends.” I would love to hear them someday. And I would love for all of us who have lost a parent to consider how we might honor their memory and our relationship with them (no matter what that relationship was like) in some meaningful way.