This Sunday, November 1stat 5 P.M., the Emmanuel Choir and Choristers of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Southern Pines, will present Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem in observance of All Saints’ Day.
Fauré began work on his Requiem in 1887 at a time when he was choirmaster at the fashionable church of the Madeleine in Paris. His Requiem is not a complete liturgical Requiem; Fauré made a personal selection of texts, laying emphasis on the idea of rest and peace.
Fauré wrote of the work, “Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.” He would later tell an interviewer, “It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience.”
Dr. Homer A. Ferguson III, Choirmaster/Organist will conduct the work, Mr. Stephen Gourley, organist, will accompany the choir on the organ, accompanied by Amanda Ferguson, violin, Bonnie Bach, harp, Katie Wyatt, viola, Paul Kirkpatrick, cello, and David Prodoehl, bass. The Pie Jesu will be sung by the choristers of Emmanuel, and baritone solos will be sung by Randall Frye and Robert Mobsby.
A prelude will begin at 4:55 P.M., offered by piper Daniel Caudill. At 5 P.M., and prior to the offering of the Requiem, all are invited to gather in the Memorial Garden for a short service of committal and remembrance for Kristine Dahlberg. Following, those gathered will follow the piper into the church for the Requiem. All are invited to a reception in the Parish Hall foyer after the presentation of the Requiem.
Kristine passed away on July 6, 2026. She and her husband Bob lived across the golf course from me when we first moved into Pinewild. As I had lived in Arizona for ten years prior to my move to North Carolina, she presented the gift of a stained-glass hummingbird, which she had acquired in Sedona. It still hangs in Eva and Norah’s bedroom.
Kris and Bob were academic by nature. They were thoughtful and interesting. Bob had studied modern European history, and Kris had a career in financial leadership. In the early 2010s she worked to develop awareness of estate planning and gifts directed to support our parish. Her efforts were important, although unfortunately tabled due to an unfortunate clergy departure. The Dahlbergs were supporters of music and the arts and had a particular interest in Taizé music and spiritual pursuits.
Bob died in 2018, and early the following year Kris contacted me about a 1930s Baldwin grand piano she owned. She was moving to a new apartment and needed some assistance in thinking through a plan for her piano. Bob had purchased the piano as a gift to Kris as a young married couple. I invited my piano technician friend John Hatcher along, and it only took a few bars of Debussy to realize that it was a fine instrument. We explored options such as moving the piano to her new home, storage (never a good idea), or selling it. As the vintage piano market for non-Steinway pianos was tough, John and I then suggested that perhaps a foster home could be found, saving Kris storage costs and at the same time making accessible an instrument to a piano student.
I had been teaching a young and promising fourth-grader named Newnew Hong for the past year and a half. She only had an electronic keyboard available for home practice. I shared my vision with Kris, that if her highest desire was that the instrument be placed in a good home, that perhaps she’d consider loaning or gifting the instrument to this young pianist. I arranged for Kris to meet Newnew and her family, and it was clear that the Holy Spirit was at work. An agreement was made and Kris’s piano, a treasured gift from her beloved husband Bob, became a brilliant practice instrument for Newnew shortly after Easter of 2019. Ever since, Kris’s Baldwin grand has been instrumental in shaping and forming Newnew as a virtuoso. Kris’s abundance as owner of this piano was shared in the same manner the piano was first given to Kris – as an expression of love.
Life tends to come full circle, and this week our 2026-2027 Bach’s Lunch Concert Series continues Friday, November 6th, at 12 Noon, with a program presented by Kangqi Newnew Hong. “Newnew” has been part of our parish family since her arrival from China to the United States in the fall of 2017. Currently preparing for conservatory auditions in piano performance, and a senior at O’Neal, Newnew will present her high school senior recital featuring works by Chopin, Beethoven, and Novák. While I wish Kris had been able to see and hear this achievement for Newnew, I know that her heavenly spirit will rejoice as the music fills our church and is lifted into the cosmos.
All are welcome. Offerings received at the Requiem and for Friday’s Bach’s Lunch concert will support of the music ministry of Emmanuel Parish.