REQUIEM (Acis APL54131)
for mixed chorus and string orchestra – new 2024 release!

“…an exquisite first recording…[of] a piece of tranquil and urgent beauty…Beck often goes against the grain, finding fresh means to convey the weighty or hopeful messages, and turning to lyricism rather than overt drama…Beck achieves an intimate portrait of mourning at once comforting and fervent.”

– Donald Rosenberg, Gramophone

“5 Albums Worth Your Listen: …a dynamic yet intimate setting…combining harmonically alluring melodies with dissonances and rhythmic drive…[with] intriguing contrapuntal techniques…”

– The Classical Review.com

One sometimes reaches a point as a composer when the music one imagines suggests a larger form, something of greater artistic consequence. Taking my cue more from earlier composers, as my piece unfolded, I was also conscious of the sacred choral music of Arvo Pärt and Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Choir, a twentieth-century choral masterpiece. These two composers somehow found modern musical languages that were purposefully subdued, yet ever powerful and moving in their seeming restraint. In light of all of this history, I found the path to my own Requiem. It is without dedication, but is of its time.