Requiem aeternam wasn’t planned, it just happened. I was working on an original choral piece with original text and some friends advised me to leave the lyrics to someone who knew what they were doing. At this time, I was working towards a performance of Faure’s Requiem and I tried some of its Latin text with my music. It just flowed into place. From that moment on, I knew I was writing a work in memory of my twin brother, Declan. He was born with a severe mental deficiency and when he died at the age of thirty six, he had the mental age of a two year old. Working on the piece over the next few weeks meant that Declan was at the forefront of my thoughts for most of my waking hours and the process of writing brought closure to some aspects of his death that I had previously had difficulty with. “Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord”. This is the theme of the work and as such, it is not a sad piece but rather one of acceptance. The piece began as an unaccompanied work in 2002 and was orchestrated in 2004