By Dona S. Dreeland

ROSS TOWNSHIP, PA -- The requiem Mass that Doug Starr, adjunct instructor in music at the Penn State New Kensington campus, will compose will be a work of the soul as he honors his deceased parents.

His father died 20 years ago; his mother, almost 10 years ago.

The Rev. Halton D. and Mardella Morehouse Starr are the inspirations for this composition. Starr, 60, and a Ross Township resident, began this musical reflection — now half completed — in the summer of 2011.

He acknowledged that the idea to remember his father and mother in this way is uncommon. As organist and choirmaster at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mt. Lebanon, he hopes to debut the composition at his church in about two years with his church choir and that of Washington & Jefferson College. While he performs, Susan Medley of McCandless, his friend and director of choral activities at the Washington, Pa., college, will conduct the piece.