Requiem For A Teen: 'Tyler's Suite' Honors A Life Cut Short
Members of the Turtle Creek Chorale, a Dallas men's choir, perform Tyler's Suite at the Dallas City Performance Hall on March 31, 2016. Michael McGary/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Members of the Turtle Creek Chorale, a Dallas men's choir, perform Tyler's Suite at the Dallas City Performance Hall on March 31, 2016.
Michael McGary/Courtesy of the artistThis week in Dallas, a singular work of music is being performed in memory of Tyler Clementi: the 18-year-old college freshman who jumped off the George Washington Bridge in 2010, after his roommate at Rutgers secretly filmed him being intimate with another man and posted about it online.
Tyler's Suite is a touring, nine-part choral movement written by team of contemporary composers, including Broadway legend Stephen Schwartz. The songs are based on hundreds of hours of interviews with the Clementi family after Tyler died, and each song takes on the perspective of a different family member. NPR's Wade Goodwyn was at the Dallas City Performance Hall this week to see the piece performed by the Turtle Creek Chorale; hear his report at the audio link.
Correction April 2, 2016
A previous version of this story stated that Tyler Clementi was recorded having sex and that a video of the encounter had been posted online. In fact, Clementi was recorded in an intimate moment, and word of the encounter was posted online, not the video itself.