The Vashon Island Chorale, under the direction of Dr. Gary D. Cannon, will sing Mozart’s “Requiem” to commemorate the 21^st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Washington D.C. and rural Pennsylvania, that occurred in 2001.

Vashon Island Fire & Rescue is also planning a morning ceremony, on the site of its 9/11 Memorial, located in front of VIFR’s main station on Bank Road. The time of the ceremony is now tentatively scheduled between 9 and 10 a.m., but will be confirmed later this week.

Several islanders, including landscape architect Bob Horsley, were involved in planning and building the memorial, which includes multiple pieces of columnar basalt from the Columbia River basin, representing the New York city skyline.

One of those columns holds a steel piece from the Twin Towers, a reminder of the destruction of that day. The project was first conceived in 2011 and was funded by private donations.

The Chorale’s performance will take place at 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11, at Vashon Center for the Arts (VCA). Admission is free, although donations for VCA’s Blue Heron Education Center’s renovation projects will gladly be accepted in the lobby.

A tradition called the “Rolling Requiem” began in 2002, for the first anniversary, and happened again in 2011 on the 10th anniversary. A memorial concert for the 20th anniversary was planned for 2021 but had to be postponed because of COVID.

This year, local soloists Jennifer Krikawa, Marita Ericksen and Gary Koch will appear along with PLU opera student, Jack Burrows, who will sing the bass solo part. Linda Lee will be at the piano and a string quartet of local artists, Karin Choo, Mary Walker, Gaye Detzer and Annie Roberts, will also accompany the piece.

Chorale president Jo Ann Bardeen said that the group has performed the Mozart “Requiem” five times previously — once at Benaroya Hall as part of a large choir group, twice in concert at St. John Vianney Church and twice in the VHS gym for 9/11 memorials.

“Amazingly, there are a lot of singers who will have been present all six times after this concert,” Bardeen said.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his “Requiem” in the year of his death, although it was unfinished when he died. His student Franz Xaver Süssmayr completed the work. It has been sung for more than 200 years to help people reflect and mourn.

In 2011, prior to the Chorale’s 10th-anniversary concert in memorial to the victims of 9/11, Chorale Director Gary Cannon told The Beachcomber why he thought the work was so appropriate to mark the solemn occasion — reasons that are still the case today.

“That’s a question for the ages,” Cannon said. “There are certainly a lot of brilliant requiems that have been written, but I don’t think any of the others have the global reach the Mozart one does. He died while he was writing it, so maybe that spiritual element behind it makes it a little more touching to the whole world. It’s a masterpiece, and to my mind that is reason enough.”

Vashon Chorale’s regular session of rehearsals leading to holiday concerts on Dec. 10 and 11 begins on Tuesday, Sept. 13. Get additional information at info@vashonislandchorale.org.