Staff Report

A rehearsal for Mozart’s “Requiem” at Homer High School is just one of dozens since August 2025 in preparation for the May performances. (Photo by Don Pitcher)


The Kenai Peninsula Community Chorus, the Homer High School Concert Choir and a 34-piece orchestra will perform “Requiem in D minor, K. 626” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in two concerts, May 1 in Homer and May 2 in Kenai.


Kyle Schneider and Mark Robinson, the current and former choral directors of Homer High and Homer Middle Schools, will conduct the Roman Catholic mass for the dead that Mozart left unfinished at his death on December 5, 1791. Local soloists Katelyn Hawkins-Wythe (soprano), SunRose Winslow (mezzo-soprano), August Kilcher (tenor) and Kyle Schneider (bass) are featured. The performances are 7 p.m., May 1, in the Homer High School Mariner Theater with a preconcert lecture at 6:15 p.m. and, in Kenai, 3 p.m., May 2, in the Renee C. Henderson Auditorium of the Kenai Central High School with a 2:15 p.m. preconcert lecture.


Audience members will have an opportunity to honor and mourn lost loved ones at a Memory
Wall. Community members can make a dedication free of charge at pieronetheatre.org, and a memorial certificate will be printed and displayed at the events.


Fiber artists who wish to quilt, knit, crochet or otherwise create framing squares for the Memory Wall are encouraged to do so. Finished 12-inch squares should be dropped off by Friday, April 24, at the Pier One Theatre Office, 332 E. Pioneer Ave. #3, or to Audra Calloway at Soldotna High School, 425 W Marydale Ave.


“Great art, and music in particular, is one of the best mediums I know with which to share and process grief,” conductor Mark Robinson said. “Choral music, especially, has the power to remind us of our humanity, our collective power, our common good.”


Pier One Theatre with the Homer High School organized the Requiem performances as a collaborative project. The two have a rich history with the Requiem. The last time the chorus performed the piece was September 11, 2002, as a part of the Rolling Requiem Project and anniversary of September 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the United States. The chorus had performances in April 2002 in Homer, Kenai and New York City. In New York, the combined Homer High School and Community Chorus performed in Carnegie Hall with two other choirs.