David Parks Sings Mozart’s ‘Requiem’ in Sarajevo

Voice professor David Parks was the only American soloist invited to sing with the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra in a special performance of Mozart’s Requiem in Sarajevo. Sponsored by the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the concert was given November 1 to honor the memory of the victims of terror in that country, as well as those killed or injured in the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

"We, the citizens of Sarajevo, have an obligation to be the first to confront terrorism because we were among its victims," said orchestra director Emir Nuhanovic, referring to the three years of interethnic civil strife that engulfed Sarajevo and the surrounding lands. Mozart’s Requiem has special meaning for the Sarajevo Philharmonic --- it was the work the orchestra performed in a concert given while the capital city was under a three-and-a-half-year siege that ultimately killed more than 10,000 residents. For that concert, guest conductor Zubin Mehta and tenor Jose Carreras arrived wearing bulletproof vests.

"While it is obvious that the city was once extremely beautiful and that some of that beauty has been restored, there is evidence everywhere that Sarajevo was virtually destroyed six years ago," Parks says. "My hotel room window frame had a bullet hole in it. During the war, there was no electricity, gas, or running water --- and yet the orchestra played on."

The selection of Parks to participate in the event came in a roundabout way. When Nuhanovic first proposed the November concert, he thought it appropriate to invite an American soloist to participate and asked Janet Miller, the cultural attaché in the Office of Public Affairs at the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo, for help in finding an American tenor. Parks’s name came up after Miller talked with an American professor who had met Parks in Alaska. As it happened, Miller grew up in Ithaca. When she learned that Parks was a respected vocalist at Ithaca College, she invited him to participate.

"I was intrigued with the possibility of being able to observe firsthand how the terrorist activity in the United States had affected the Bosnian people," Parks says. "I was also able to see how the people in Bosnia and Herzegovina found a way to deal with the horror in their own country through Mozart’s inspired musical setting of the Requiem texts. The hope is this concert will draw attention to the international fight against terrorism and help strengthen the reconciliation processes among different communities within Bosnian and Herzegovinian society."

An accomplished oratorio soloist, Parks has sung at numerous venues, including Carnegie Hall, where he appeared as the tenor soloist in performances of Mendelssohn’s Elijah and masses by Mozart and Schubert. He has also performed with opera companies in Syracuse, Michigan, Arizona, and Cape Town, South Africa.