L-R: Stephen Culbertson, Robert Sirota, SOMA Orchestra
World Premiere of Robert Sirota’s Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept”
in Many Voices, One Nation
at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on November 22, 2026
Performed by the Society of Musical Arts (SOMA) Orchestra
Led by Music Director Stephen Culbertson
Sunday, November 22, 2026 at 4pm
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church | 414 E. Broad St. | Westfield, NJ
Free and Open to the Public
More Information
Livestream Here
Robert Sirota | SOMA | Stephen Culbertson
Westfield, NJ – On Sunday, November 22, 2026 at 4pm, Robert Sirota’s Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept” will have its world premiere at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church (414 E. Broad St.), presented by the Society of Musical Arts (SOMA). The premiere will be performed by the SOMA Orchestra, led by Music Director Stephen Culbertson. The concert also includes Fanfare for the Common Man and Billy the Kid Suite by Aaron Copland, Jubilee from Symphonic Sketches by George Chadwick, and La Jolla Sinfonietta by Bohuslav Martinů, featuring pianist Evan Schwartman. The program, titled Many Voices, One Nation, is part of SOMA’s celebrations in honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States. The performance is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed here.
Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept” grew out of Robert Sirota’s friendship with Stephen Culbertson. Being almost neighbors in Maine, Sirota and Culbertson have bonded at musical gatherings, specifically Sirota’s Searsmont Composers’ Conclave in 2025 and his Muzzy Ridge Concerts, held each summer since 2021. Over a summertime lobster dinner, Culbertson asked Sirota to compose a short orchestral piece for SOMA’s concert celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. Culbertson proposed a work based on a hymn by William Billings, the 18th-century American hymn composer often regarded as the father of American choral music.
Billings’ hymn When Jesus Wept, a four-phrase fuguing tune or round, resonated strongly with Sirota, who spent the next two weeks after that August dinner “fairly obsessed” with it. In early September, he mapped out the piece during long haul flights between the U.S. and Nagoya, Japan, where his Symphony No. 1: 212 received its Asian premiere on September 3. Finishing the work upon returning home, he delivered it to Culbertson on October 8. Both the music and text of the hymn When Jesus Wept were written in Boston in 1770, the beginning of a tumultuous decade in American history, and were first printed that year in Billings’ The New-England Psalm-Singer, the first book of music entirely composed by an American-born composer. The text, written by Massachusetts legislator and attorney general Perez Morton (who in 1770, was a student at Harvard College), is a meditation on the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus Wept” (John 11:35), in which Jesus sheds tears over his friend Lazarus.
“Given the fraught times in which Billings and Morton lived and worked,” Sirota says, “the hymn must have had contemporary resonance for them, as it does for me in our time.”
When Jesus Wept, the falling tear
In mercy flowed beyond all bound.
When Jesus groaned, a trembling fear
seized all the guilty world around.
–Perez Morton, 1770
About Robert Sirota: Robert Sirota’s works have been performed by orchestras across the US, Europe, and Asia; ensembles such as Alarm Will Sound, Sequitur, yMusic, Chameleon Arts, and Dinosaur Annex; the Chiara, American, Telegraph, and Blair String Quartets; the Neave, Peabody, Concord, and Webster Trios; and at music festivals including Tanglewood, Aspen, Yellow Barn, Cooperstown, Bowdoin, and the Mizzou International Composers Festival. Recent commissions include the Neave Trio, Judith Clurman/Essential Voices USA, Jeffrey Kahane and the Sarasota Music Festival, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Palladium Musicum, American Guild of Organists, the American String Quartet, Alarm Will Sound, the Naumburg Foundation, yMusic, and arrangements for Paul Simon. Recipient of grants from the Guggenheim and Watson Foundations, the United States Information Agency, National Endowment for the Arts, Meet The Composer, and the American Music Center, Sirota’s works are recorded on the Capstone, Albany, New Voice, Gasparo, and Azica labels. Sirota’s music is published by Muzzy Ridge Music, Hal Leonard, MorningStar, Theodore Presser, and To the Fore.
About Stephen Culbertson: Stephen Culbertson brings over 40 years of experience to the Society of Musical Arts, having conducted orchestras, opera productions, and ballet companies in Europe and the United States since 1977. Since 2010, he has served as Music Director and Conductor of SOMA, where he has grown the orchestra and audience to the point where it has outgrown three venues. Culbertson also recently served as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Ridgewood (NJ) Symphony Orchestra. His other recent activities include conducting productions of Le Nozze di Figaro and Candide with the State Repertory Opera of New Jersey and various stints as interim music/choir director at the Presbyterian Church of Upper Montclair.
About Society of Musical Arts (SOMA): The Society of Musical Arts (SOMA) was founded in 1981 by Dr. Samuel Applebaum, New Jersey's world-renowned master teacher of the violin. The orchestra is an expression of Dr. Applebaum's vision of providing opportunities for both amateur and professional musicians to present concerts of orchestral music free to the public, with multi-generational appeal, in a location convenient to the residents of Essex, Union, Morris and nearby counties.
For Calendar Editors:
Concert details:
Who: Society of Musical Arts (SOMA Orchestra, with pianist Evan Schwartman
Presented by the Society of Musical Arts (SOMA)|
Led by Music Director Stephen Culbertson
What: Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept” by Robert Sirota (World Premiere), Fanfare for the Common Man and Billy the Kid Suite by Aaron Copland, Jubilee from Symphonic Sketches by George Chadwick, and La Jolla Sinfonietta by Bohuslav Martinů
When: Sunday, November 22, 2026 at 4pm
Where: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 414 East Broad Street, Westfield, NJ 07090
More information (Free and Open to the Public): somaorchestra.org/upcoming/2026/11/22/fall-concert-happy-250th-again-america
Livestream: https://www.somaorchestra.org/ (Click the banner at the top of the page on the day of the concert)
Description: On November 22, 2026, Fantasia on “When Jesus Wept” by composer Robert Sirota has its world premiere at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, presented by the Society of Musical Arts (SOMA). Performed by the Society of Musical Arts Orchestra and led by Music Director Stephen Culbertson, the premiere is part of Many Voices, One Nation, SOMA’s celebration for the 250th anniversary of America. The program will also include Fanfare for the Common Man and Billy the Kid Suite by Aaron Copland, Jubilee from Symphonic Sketches by George Chadwick, and La Jolla Sinfonietta by Bohuslav Martinů, featuring pianist Evan Schwartman. The concert is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed.