During six weeks in 2021, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin lost his adult son to suicide. He came perilously close to forfeiting his own life when he was swept up in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

And, as the lead prosecutor in the Senate trial to impeach former President Donald Trump, the Maryland Democrat feared he was about to be robbed of his country.

Raskin’s personal challenges didn’t end with Trump’s acquittal. In December, 2022, Raskin was diagnosed with cancer, but announced a year later that his chemotherapy treatment had been successful and that he is in remission.

Now, a Takoma Park-based music group has taken that extraordinary period in the congressman’s life — and the nation’s history — and turned it into a work of art.

“The Jamie Raskin Oratorio,” a 37-minute poem with music, will receive its world premiere Saturday in Silver Spring.

The “Oratorio” is written in Raskin’s voice and at times addresses the congressman’s dead son, Tommy, directly.

“Our democracy is such a fragile, precarious, transitory thing,” the poem says. “We could have been plunged into authoritarianism. And then I would have lost you twice. My son, my dear America.”

The “Oratorio” was commissioned by Washington Musica Viva, which has performed chamber music in small, intimate settings since 1998.

Carl Banner, the music group’s executive director said that Raskin is a beloved figure in the community — as are members of his family. Tommy’s Pantry, a thriving food program serving part of Montgomery County, is named in honor of the congressman’s son, who died Dec. 31, 2020, at age 25.

“Jamie Raskin is the congressman from our district, and he is a local hero for us,” Banner said.

Banner asked Anne Becker, the former poet laureate of Takoma Park, to write the text. She spent nine months reading newspaper interviews with the congressman, listening to his speeches on YouTube, and combing through his 2022 memoir: “Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy.”

After Becker finished writing the 11-section poem and before the concert had been scheduled, the group sent the manuscript to Raskin’s office.

“I am honored and touched beyond measure and also somewhat dumbfounded by the whole thing,” Raskin wrote in an email to The Sun.

His spokeswoman said that prior commitments will prevent the congressman from attending the performance at the Church of the Ascension in Silver Spring.

But Raskin added that he feels “very grateful to Anne Becker, a brilliant poet in Maryland who has apparently been a moving force behind the project” and said that he hopes “to thank everyone involved.”

The piece proceeds roughly chronologically from Dec. 31, 2020, through Trump’s acquittal on Feb. 13, 2121. Occasionally, Becker departs from the written record to weave in her own interpretations, most notably in the first and shortest section of the “Oratorio” which touches upon Tommy Raskin’s suicide.

Becker feared that using the congressman’s recollections of his private tragedy in a work of art would be inappropriate and intrusive.

“I couldn’t touch that,” she said. “Those memories are his.”

Instead, the poem describes a moment of stillness — almost of peace — in the period between Tommy Raskin’s death and the discovery of his body. A book lays face-down on the floor. Soft cotton clothes are jumbled in a pile. All movement ceases once the “elegant symmetry” of the body has been halted.

But Tommy Raskin remains a figure throughout the remainder of the “Oratorio” as his father carries him in his heart during the following frantic six weeks.

The second section describes Jamie Raskin’s scramble to safety with other senators caught inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 and his worries about his daughter, Tabitha, who seeks refuge in a locked office.

But this section is not without occasional flashes of humor.“Shots fired in the House,” the poem says. “Keep moving, down hallways and exit ramps at a fast trot that’s pretty impressive for middle-aged politicians.”

The final section of the poem describes Raskin’s futile hope that “righteous Republicans” will join Democrats and vote to impeach Trump.

Composer Noam Faingold said he scored the piece for piano (played by Banner) and trumpet (performed by Chris Royal) because the instruments perform different functions. The trumpet stands in for Raskin’s voice and is alternately triumphant and plaintive. Even when the sound thickens and distorts during moments of trauma, the trumpet is always in search of a melody.

The piano, in contrast, has as many voices as the community it represents, from the different members of Congress to the American people.

“When I saw Anne’s completed text,” Faingold said, “I realized my role was to highlight and underline her poem, to create a pedestal for it, to bring in what was felt but not directly seen.”

Though Saturday’s concert at the Church of the Ascension in Silver Spring is the only performance that has been scheduled, Banner said his group “hopes other interested organizations will help it to give us more life after the premiere.”

They think “The Raskin Oratorio” has an important American story to tell. In the final coda, that trumpet soars, its voice in harmony with the piano.

“Jamie could have been totally dragged down by his son’s death,” Becker said. “But he didn’t let that stop him from doing something important for his country.”

If you go

“The Raskin Oratorio” will be performed at 7 p.m. Saturday at Church of the Ascension, 633 Sligo Ave., Silver Spring. Tickets cost $20 and can be purchased at dcmusicaviva.org.