Legacy Matters
Music based on a near-death experience
Beth McCoy's Illumination Suite performed in a concert along with Brahms and Debussy
“The first movement is about the scurry of life, and then bang, something happens,” McCoy said. “The second movement is called ‘Through the Tunnel.’ Everything is in the numbers of three, as in the trinity of the father, the son and the holy ghost. The third movement is about coming back from a near death experience and I called it ‘Returned, Transformed.’ It’s about coming back with a new sense of life.”
---
However, her near death experience isn’t exactly what prompted her to compose the piece.
“It was when I read Don Piper’s ‘90 Minutes in Heaven’ and read that he said that he would give up everything, even leave his family, to go back to heaven to hear the music,” McCoy said. “It was the music that he heard in heaven that made him feel that way.”