The Fort Myers Symphonic Mastersingers is an ensemble of more than 100 volunteer vocalists from all walks of life who’ve been coming together to perform great choral works since 2001.
On March 21-22, they’ll be performing a specially commissioned ten-part choral composition inspired by a book authored by James Waxler in 1888, about his time serving in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Waxler is the great-great grandfather of the Artistic Director of the Fort Myers Symphonic Mastersingers and the City of Palms Youth Choir, Matthew Koller.
“The book has been in my family for my entire life. And, you know, when I was in my early 20s, after my son was born, I got into that phase that I think most men do, and they wonder where they came from and what they’re passing down,” said Koller.
“So, I decided to take the memoir out and transcribe it so that we could easily see what it was. And as I’m reading it, I’m wondering why nobody else has heard these stories.”
Koller initially looked into having it published, but after finding no interest from publishers, he conceived the idea of turning the story into music. That’s when he reached out to his friend, composer Thomas LaVoy, who spent the next two to three years researching and writing the piece.
“Initially, I think it was pitched as a cantata, but we had also talked about it having theatrical elements, sort of, and the form kind of changed a little bit over time, and what it turned into is not a strict cantata. It’s not an oratorio. It is an extended choral work, but it also has this pretty grand narration and tenor solo and this mezzo soprano solo,” said LaVoy.
“So, it kind of does defy expectations.”
The memoir begins with Waxler and his brother heeding the call of Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin for support as Confederate forces were approaching Gettysburg. Seeking what they thought would be the excitement of war, Waxler and his brother signed up for the emergency infantry and fought in a few skirmishes prior to the Battle of Gettysburg.
After that limited engagement, Waxler re-enlists as a cavalryman for Pennsylvania and spent another two years fighting in the war.
“Little by little, the more loss that he witnesses, the more broken he becomes,” said Koller.
The climax of the piece stems from an account in Waxler’s memoir about the murder of an enslaved Black girl at the hands of a Union soldier in Charlottesville, Virginia. Koller said, the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally that occurred in Charlottesville in 2017 reignited his vigor for this project.
“That was the main reason that I wanted this story told was so that that little girl could be remembered. And so, yes, indeed, he does witness a drunken Union soldier killing a young Black slave and it’s one of the worst things that he ever witnessed in his time in the Army,” said Koller.
LaVoy and Koller knew early on that input from the Black community would be essential.
“Because of that moment with the murder of the young slave girl, we wanted to approach this in a way that was sensitive to that, but also didn’t shy away from the horror of that moment, which is a very difficult line to walk,” said LaVoy.
“Especially as a white man myself, Matt, being a white man, I think we just had to get the input of people whose ancestors went through these things and who still deal with the repercussions today. And so, we had a fundraising event at Southern Charm Bistro, and we basically opened up the floor.”
“And they said, ‘we don’t want to hear apologies. We want to hear from the slaves,” added Koller.
The names and stories of some 10 million enslaved people in America between 1500 and 1865 are largely missing from historical records, so addressing that void sent LaVoy down a different creative path that wound up redefining the music.
“I opted for a very different approach that involved the music of Black composers who were either enslaved themselves and subsequently freed, or whose ancestors had been enslaved and those sort of tendrils weave around the words of James Waxler throughout the work and really make up the DNA of the music itself,” said LaVoy.
One of the enslaved composers LaVoy’s composition draws from is Sawney Freeman, recognized as potentially one of the earliest Black composers in the U.S., but whose work was only recently rediscovered.
“This sort of incredibly talented fiddler/violinist who had written all this incredible music, including the piece that we have in the work, which is ‘The New Death March,’ which of course, the Civil War. As soon as I saw the title of that, I was like, ‘Okay, that’s going in.’ And it becomes this line that runs throughout the entire piece,” said LaVoy.
The music is composed for a choral ensemble, piano, string quartet, and tenor soloist representing the part of Waxler, and a mezzo-soprano vocalist embodying the part of the murdered Black girl. For that, Koller reached out to his long-time friend and three-time Grammy-winning vocalist Tanisha Anderson, who agreed to the project before the music was even written.
When Koller called and pitched the idea to Anderson, he did mention the killing of the enslaved girl, but she said what she really remembered them discussing during that phone call, was another incident in Charlottesville they witnessed together as college students in the early 90s.
“The Ku Klux Klan had held a rally. So, we were all just walking around the streets, and basically the main road, and the Ku Klux Klan they’re just marching down, and we’re all just standing there,” said Anderson.
“And then, me as myself, being down there, one of the only persons of color in the group, experiencing that, alongside with my fellow Westminster Choir members, it just was an intense moment for all of us.”
Anderson said thinking about the enslaved girl in the story got her reflecting on her own childhood, and a time she remembers white parents protesting their kids being transferred to a predominantly Black school.
“I literally remember, like crossing the picket line one day and one of my friend's parents, she spit on me, and she said, ‘If you tell your parents that I did this to you, we're going to kill you.’ And I think I was in the second or third grade, I was a little kid, and I didn't understand,” said Anderson.
“So this little girl, this music, represents little Tanisha, honestly, to the core of who I am, and just going through life, my experiences, my point of view, which is so different from other people, and representing how far I've come, or what I became, despite it being almost taken away from me or threatened, and just staying firm that I belong here. I'm supposed to be here, and this is what I'm supposed to do. So, it definitely represents who I am, especially the woman I am today.”
The tenor soloist for this weekend’s premiere concerts is Matthew’s son Christian Koller, meaning the words of James Waxler will be performed by his very own great, great, great grandson.
“It’s really an honor to step into his shoes and to be able to be part of sun an incredible piece,” said Christian.
“The words are written as a warning to his son, essentially and to describe what it’s like to be in war and to be in that moment. And yet, sometimes it feels like he’s talking right to us, or he’s right in that moment then. And so, you hear the fear in his voice. You hear the compassion in his voice. It just sounds like he’s right there,” said Christian.
Matthew Koller says he finds his great-great-grandfather’s message eerily relevant today.
“The Civil War was the country’s most divided time, to be sure, but I think there could be an argument made for us being in the next most divided time right now, you know, where people are just so polarized,” said Matthew.
“And if we’re able to listen and witness to one another then maybe we can make a change in the world.”
If You Go:
Fort Myers Symphonic Mastersingers world premiere of “The Witness: Incidents of the War of the Rebellion”
Saturday, March 21, 2026 at 5 p.m.Faith Presbyterian Church4544 Coronado Pkwy, Cape Coral, FL
Sunday, March 22, 2026 at 4 p.m. First Presbyterian Church of Bonita Springs, Bonita Springs, FL
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