St. Joseph Schools music teacher’s composition celebrates Union Station’s 100th anniversary

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St. Joseph schools’ music director Alfonso Tenreiro, pictured, wrote a symphonic work that was performed at Union Station’s 100th anniversary closing ceremony.

OGDEN — A symphonic piece played at the Nov. 22 closing ceremony for Union Station’s 100th anniversary was commissioned from Alfonso Tenreiro, a composer whose original works have been heard in Utah for more than 25 years.

Tenreiro is the music director at Saint Joseph Catholic elementary and high schools and Saint Florence Mission in Huntsville. A native of Venezuela, he moved to the United States in 1981 to attend the Marmion Military Academy in Aurora, Ill. He went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in music composition with organ as a minor and flute as a secondary instrument from Indiana University in Bloomington. He also has a master’s degree in music composition and choral conducting.

Almost immediately after moving to Utah in 1998 he won the Utah Arts Festival Orchestral Commission competition with his piece “Mountain Echoes,” which was premiered by the Utah Symphony.

In 2000, he wrote a requiem for the Cathedral of the Madeleine choir; the following year the Diocese of Salt Lake City commissioned him to write “Misa Magdalena” for chamber orchestra, chorus and congregation.

In 2009 he composed “Ave Maria,” a work for treble voices [soprano and alto] for students of The Madeleine Choir School to sing for the Salt Lake City Choral Artists Music Camp. In 2011 Tenreiro’s music premiered at the Park City Music Film Festival in the short film “Adler’s Bus Stop,” which won the Gold Medal for Excellence in Original Music. On June of the same year, Tenreiro’s concerto “Concertino for Harp Strings,” which he composed in 1986, was featured at the Utah Arts Festival.

In 2015 Tenreiro was commissioned to compose a piece of classical music for the Louisiana State University Symphony Orchestra; over the years he has been commissioned to write more than a dozen pieces in Venezuela and the United States.

The symphonic piece for the Union Station anniversary came about because “one day an article about the celebration popped up in my phone, and I said to myself, ‘Wow, this is so nice; I want to do something for that,’” Tenreiro said.

He approached officials at Union Station, who welcomed the idea.

For inspiration Tenreiro considered what the Ogden community was like 100 years ago, as well as what the historic 23rd Street was like in the 1940s. Union Station is located at the west end of 23rd Street. “I also took into account the workers of Union Station, the amazing sound that the vibrations that the trains made, but also of the jazz scene in Ogden that continues to this day,” he said.

The piece premiered in November, and “it was really great,” Tenreiro said. “I have written symphonic work to celebrate historical events, especially in Venezuela.”

Hearing the piece played for the first time “was magical,” he said. “It’s hard to describe with words. … People who had worked at Union Station told me they really felt the power of who they are through the music.”

The anniversary celebration included the opening of a time capsule containing documents from 100 years ago and the burial of a new time capsule.

“Some people including myself put new documents that will be buried there for the next 100 years,” said Tenreiro, who put in sketches and the score of his piece. In addition, he wrote a letter in which he included his appreciation for St. Joseph Catholic Schools, “who have entrusted me to teach and shed the light of Christ to our students,” he said.