Music as a Memorial

Music especially composed to address the futility of road deaths and long-lasting pain of victims is an important and much valued memorial. Special compositions have been dedicated to or offered in remembrance of road crash victims.

Music also plays an important part at World Day events, with special concerts frequently included among the main events organized to mark the World Day.

For World Day 2008, Charles Timberlake composed The Long Adieu – a musical memorial to road crash victims: a piano piece, which will, it is hoped, bring solace and healing to road trauma victims worldwide.

For World Day 2017, iRAP have produced a Video, based on the song One by One by Rob McInerney, Simon Barlow and Aaron Schultz. Find the lyrics here

At the London World Day service in 2007, Greg Harper sang a song about a woman road victim, Mary Lou, which he had composed in 1999.

Words-to-Mary-Lou

Mary Lou composer

London 2007

UK, London, Wigmore Hall concert flyer, 26 November 2004

In 2010, the gospel song “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child” was performed in memory of Kostas Kouvidis, a young jazz drummer, who was killed as a pedestrian in Athens:

The current FEVR President, Jeannot Mersch, himself a bereaved father as well as a musician, composed a piece called “Missing”

 – for his daughter and all road victims. This moving piece is now known as the FEVR Hymn and has been performed at various remembrance ceremonies in Luxemburg and many other countries. Anyone is welcome to use it and the sheet music is also provided:

Luxemburg Victim Hymn

Croatia, A performance of songs of separation, World Day 2010