…The Ultimate Stabat Mater website is a wonderful resource for scholars, composers, musicians, academics, theologians, lovers of music who appreciate the subject matter – the list is endless! I applaud your husband’s legacy and your own great efforts to continue the initiative…

That’s what Richard Prior wrote to us when he contacted us about his Stabat Mater composition from 2001. Thank you so much Mr. Prior! His composition reminds me of the Stabat Mater compositions by Ramona Luengen and Richard Blackford since the Latin text of Priors Stabat Mater (like Luengen and Blackford) is interwoven with contemporary poems in English by women on the related themes of love, grief and loss through conflict or other adverse circumstances.‘In composing this piece’, Richard Prior says in the Program Notes ‘it was my intention to reach beyond the traditional Judeo-Christian focus of the text and through use of contemporary poems relate the entire work to a much more universal aspect of the human experience. Death as a natural part of life, defines the fragility of our mortality and the incalculable value of those around us.’ His Stabat Mater was nominated for the Pulitzer Price in 2001 and broadcast by PBS in 2008. We just added this Stabat Mater to the collection so please read and listen!