True Concord Voices & Orchestra has only performed Jake Runestad's 2011 homage to war veterans once, in 2018.
But the work for choir and orchestra was the centerpiece of the ensemble's 2024 record "A Dream So Bright."
This weekend, True Concord brings the piece back for its "I Dream A World" concert, part of its season-long celebration of America at 250.
Composer Jake Runestad, standing, and pianist Jeffrey Biegel worked with True Concord when the Tucson ensemble recorded Runestad's “Dreams of the Fallen," a choral piece Biegel had commissioned.
Jeffrey Biegel, who commissioned Runestad to write the piece, will once again be at the piano. He was here in 2018, when True Concord first played the piece, and he was featured on the 2024 recording.
In an early February phone call, Biegel recalled how "Dreams of the Fallen" started with two strangers having lunch.
In September 2011, Biegel was in Minneapolis performing with the celebrated choral ensemble VocalEssence when a tall, lanky young man approached him during a rehearsal break.
"He said to me, 'I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm really enjoying this rehearsal. I'm Jake Runestad. I'm a composer living in Minneapolis now, and I was very interested in hearing this work'," Biegel said.
True Concord Voices & Orchestra continues its America at 250 season with "I Dream A World" featuring pianist Jeffrey Biegel.
When Runestad said he was a choral composer, Biegel's ears perked up; he loves choral music and composes for the genre himself.
Biegel invited Runestad to lunch and before they had even ordered, Biegel made the pitch:
"I don't know why I'm saying this, but I think you're my next composer," he told him, and Runestad, all of about 25 at the time, was a bit taken aback.
"He looked at me, intrigued, and he says, 'Oh, really? What does that mean?'" Biegel said.
The Grammy-winning pianist, who has commissioned more than 30 works including three that he premiered last year, pitched a few ideas, but Runestad, who writes music "pertinent to the time and the present and pertinent to the human spirit," Biegel said, had his own idea.
He wanted to write about veterans returning from war, "lost in the world they once knew," Biegel said.
"He called them 'dreams of the fallen,' and at first I thought the fallen were those who died," the pianist said. "And he says, 'No, the fallen are those who are fallen from society and they come home from war and they're lost and they don't have enough support of community to help them pick up the pieces and get some closure and move on.' And that's what the piece does."
Runestad set the text of poetry by veteran Brian Turner to tell a story about the dreams and nightmares veterans experience in battle and when they come home.
Biegel described the work as "one of the great pieces" in the choral symphony repertoire.
"I think it should be performed every year at Veterans Day," he said.
True Concord's album, which landed a 2025 Grammy nomination, also included Runestad's 2022 work "Earth Symphony," commissioned by True Concord.
"I Dream A World" also includes Peter Boyer's 2006 work "Dreaming a World," which uses traditional Native American texts alongside texts from Langston Hughes, John F. Kennedy, Walt Whitman and Mahatma Gandhi.
True Concord will perform the concert at 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27, at Green Valley's Valley Presbyterian Church, 2800 S. Camino del Sol; and 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, and 3 p.m. Sunday, March 1, at Catalina Foothills High School, 4300 E. Sunrise Drive. Tickets, available through trueconcord.org, are $23.50-$68.50.
Coming up: True Concord will host Filigree Ensemble in its second Close-up series on Tuesday, March 3, at St. Philips in the Hills Episcopal Music Center, 4440 N. Campbell Ave. Filigree Ensemble with True Concord vocalists Christina Kay and Kim Leeds marries historical early music traditions with inventive arrangements and ornamentation. The program includes works that take us back to 1776 from leading European and colonial America composers.
The concert starts at 4 p.m. Tickets — $28.50 for True Concord subscribers, $43.50 for GA — are available at trueconcord.org.
