Brigham Young University–Hawaii’s Hoʻolōkahi Chamber Choir (HCC) took the stage at Carnegie Hall in New York City on May 11, 2025. The 54-member ensemble—representing a diverse mosaic of countries and ethnicities—performed “Worldwide Requiem,” a 25-minute, seven-movement composition by BYUH assistant professor Dr. Erica Glenn.
The piece, performed in collaboration with the New England Symphonic Ensemble, mourns global tragedies through a fusion of Latin and six other languages. Each movement reflects a specific catastrophe and honors the lives lost in Lahaina, Ukraine, Tonga, Palestine, the Philippines, and Japan. The piece is a momentous and emotional performance that blends cultures, languages, and testimonies of resilience.
“As a choir, we mourned deeply when our singers were affected by the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano in Tonga and the fires in Lahaina,” said Dr. Glenn. “My singers wept with me when war broke out in regions of Ukraine where I used to live—Donetsk, Kharkiv, Mariupol. I learned about other disasters that my students have overcome, including Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. These events literally and figuratively split the ground beneath the feet of the young people in my choir, and yet they only registered as a brief blip on the Western world’s radar. And so I wrote this piece for the choir, soloists, and chamber orchestra, honoring my students’ great losses and celebrating their individual resilience and collective unity.”
Honoring Ancestors Through Dance and Lei
For choir members, the concert wasn’t just an artistic performance—it was a deeply personal act of remembrance and testimony.
Moanahiwalani Walker, a sophomore from Hawaii double majoring in Hawaiian Studies and biology, danced during the Requiem’s final movement, “In Paradisum,” a tribute to the 2023 Lahaina fire. For her, it was more than just choreography.
“I’m related to people from Lahaina in Maui,” she said. “It’s cool that I get to honor my ancestors by dancing and singing this for them. It’s a huge responsibility that we’re representing all these different cultures.”
Walker went further in her tribute by handcrafting unique leis to represent each of the six countries and tragedies included in the piece. Each lei was symbolic for the locations, made up of specific plants that represented qualities, like strength or power. “I speak Hawaiian, but I don’t speak Tagalog, Japanese, Ukrainian, or Tongan—or Latin,” she added. “So there’s a lot of pressure to pronounce the words right because I want to portray their language in the way they deserve.”
Healing Through Music and Memory
For Romel Aggabao, a sophomore from the Philippines majoring in information technology, the performance was a full-circle moment of healing, faith, and family.
“When I was being taught by the missionaries, I was 17,” Aggabao shared. “The first thing that caught my attention was the hymn ‘There Is a Green Hill Far Away.’ That song brought me peace, and it was the reason I got baptized. Music has always helped me feel the love of Heavenly Father.”
The journey to BYU–Hawaii was not an easy one. Just two years before arriving on campus in August 2023, Aggabao lost both his parents—his mother to a brain aneurysm and his father to cancer. One of his last memories before leaving for Laie was visiting their graves and singing to them.
“Music has always been part of my life,” he said. “I know my father is proud of me whenever he sees me sing in a choir. This opportunity to be in this choir—my parents are definitely proud of me.”
Now in his second year with the Hoʻolōkahi Chamber Choir, Aggabao described it as a “free space” where diversity thrives and friendships flourish. “Our message is to build unity through diversity,” he said. “I’ve learned the bigger purpose I play in life, the Lord’s expectations of me. When I return to my home province of Isabela, I want to share the secular and spiritual knowledge I’ve learned here to help others lift themselves higher.”
Giving Voice to the Unspeakable
Mitzi Diaz-Chou, a senior from the Philippines majoring in music with an emphasis in composition, is a survivor of Typhoon Haiyan, one of the deadliest storms in recorded history.
“When Dr. Glenn found out I was a survivor of the typhoon, she asked me to tell my story,” Diaz-Chou said. “She turned it into a choral piece in my native language, Waray, which has never been used in a major composition like this before.”
Diaz-Chou vividly recalled evacuating to a chapel at 5 am, hearing the whistling winds, and watching the windows explode as storm surges swept away communities.
“When the typhoon finally ended, we walked out and saw bloated corpses everywhere,” she said. “People were clinging to trees, looking for their families. The looting that followed didn’t help either.”
Performing the lyrics was overwhelming for Diaz-Chou. “Goosebumps. That’s what I felt when we first sang it,” she said. “Even the choir members who weren’t from the Philippines, when they heard the English translation of the lyrics, they cried. That’s the power of music—it connects, it heals.”
Behind the Music, Beside the Memory
Assisting in bringing the Requiem to life was BYUH alumna Mia Malit-Cruz, originally from the Philippines and currently serving as the acting ensemble director for individual choir participants.
“For the Worldwide Requiem, I was instructed to extract the individual instrumental parts from the full score that Dr. Glenn had and compile them into part books,” she explained. “Those books were then used by the professional musicians of the New England Symphonic Ensemble.”
Malit-Cruz felt a deep connection to the third movement, which reflects on Typhoon Haiyan’s devastation in the Philippines, particularly in Tacloban City, where she lived until a year before the storm struck.
“It helped open my eyes and made me more aware of the disasters that occurred around the world,” she said. “It reminded me that each person, no matter what nationality, is a child of God and should be loved by everyone.”
Her technical work behind the scenes allowed the piece to be performed with precision and power, but her emotional involvement gave it soul.
Sharing the Light of the Gospel Through Music
Brianna Frehner, a senior from Utah majoring in music with an emphasis in vocal performance, emphasized that music is its own language—a sacred one. “Music is a universal language,” she said. “We all speak different tongues, but through music we share God’s love. It inspires people, comforts them, and brings the Spirit.”
Frehner said that the choir at BYUH is uniquely intimate due to its global diversity. “We don’t just make friends—we make music together,” she said. “And that special connection leads to empathy, which leads to Christlike love.”
Ariyana Milad, a senior from Canada double majoring in Health and Human Sciences and music, said that Carnegie Hall was a dream long in the making. “You see it in movies—Leonard Bernstein performed there, and some of the world’s greatest musicians. I never imagined I’d perform there myself,” she said. “It’s such a cool experience, but even more meaningful because we’re representing Jesus Christ, the gospel, and our school on a platform where that’s rare.”
She added that BYU–Hawaii’s mission has helped her see how her God-given gifts—especially in music—can uplift others, both globally and at home.
Peace and Unity
The choir’s name, Hoʻolōkahi, means “to bring about unity; to make peace and unity.” That mission is embedded in every note they sing. According to their official description, HCC seeks to be a force for peace by capitalizing on cultural diversity and fostering meaningful exchange through music.
While the students come from countries as far apart as Canada and Tonga, Ukraine and the Philippines, they are united by the same message: empathy, healing, and harmony through song.
“Although performing on the Carnegie Hall stage was a huge honor and such an exciting and affirming experience for all of us,” said Dr. Glenn, “some of the most sacred moments happened during our chorus rehearsals beforehand where students who survived the disasters represented in the Worldwide Requiem shared their personal stories with the full choir of 101 singers. Everyone was in tears, and several of the non-BYU–Hawaii singers shared how moved they were by our students' warm aloha, their personal stories, and the way they embraced the intercultural peacebuilding mission of the university.”
And now, with the choir’s voices echoing in one of the world’s most iconic concert halls, they’ve shown that even the quietest prayers can resonate across continents.
