JOHNSON CITY, NY (WIVT/WBGH) – A local choir is responding to the trauma and grief many have felt during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Binghamton Downtown Singers are presenting A Concert of Healing this weekend at Sarah Jane Johnson Memorial United Methodist Church in Johnson City.

The concert will include 2 pieces that have rarely, if ever, been performed in Greater Binghamton: Johannes Brahms’ German Requiem, sung in German, and Dan Forrest’s 2013 composition “Requiem for the Living.”

The event is being held as a memorial to those who died from COVID as well as a tribute to the front line workers who responded to the pandemic.

Co-President of the Downtown Singers Julie Drozdowski says Forrest’s requiem was written specifically to honor the living and she suspects the Brahms piece may have been as well.

“As I was researching the Brahms requiem, I realized that he did not necessarily consider that a true requiem either. He wrote that more as a requiem for humanity. His is very much also a requiem for the living, as a way to ease hearts and minds and put your soul at rest. They’re both such beautiful works,” she says.

Forrest is from Breesport, New York which is near Elmira.

In addition to the choir, there will be 4 soloists: soprano Julia Ebner, baritone Timothy LeFebvre, tenor Dann Coakwell and child soprano Ana Stoye, as well as a 35 piece orchestra.

The concert is this Saturday at 7:30.

General admission tickets are 20 dollars and can be purchased at the door or at http://DowntownSingers.org.