‘The Bill of Rights: Ten Amendments in Eight Motets’ will be performed as a benefit concert for West Hartford reporter Steve Majerus-Collins who resigned his job with The Bristol Press for ethical reasons.

Neely Bruce (left) with Steve Majerus-Collins. Courtesy photo

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Wesleyan University composer Neely Bruce is putting on a performance of his “The Bill of Rights: Ten Amendments in Eight Motets” as a benefit concert for a reporter who lives in West Hartford.

Bruce said he wanted to hold the benefit for longtime journalist Steve Majerus-Collins, whose Christmas Eve resignation draw national attention to his publisher’s lack of ethics. “I wanted to do this for Steve because his First Amendment rights and have been violated big time,” Bruce said.

“A lot of people’s rights are being violated all the time in this country,” Bruce said. “Read the Bill of Rights. You can’t exercise your rights if you don’t know what they are.”

Bruce said the 4 p.m., Sunday, April 17 concert at the historic Prospect United Methodist Church in Bristol will be “a fabulous, mixed-media event.” He said that New Haven photographer Andrew Hogan “has a really beautiful” photo essay that will accompany the piece. In addition to Hogan’s photographic essay that includes both his own work and that of others, the concert will feature a choir of local and regional singers backed by an instrumental ensemble.

Both Bruce and Collins will speak briefly beforehand.

Bruce said he decided to set the First Amendment to music after reading a 2004 Knight Foundation study that found half the nation’s youth had no problem with the government censoring news. “The magnificent rhythms of the text were so captivating, and so much fun to set to music, that I decided to set the entire Bill of Rights” to music, he said. Bruce said he wrote his composition “in the style of William Billings, America’s first great composer and a contemporary of the Founders.”

“The music I have written is tuneful and memorable. I already know that if you sing it you will become more and more aware of the Bill of Rights, and the condition is ongoing, perhaps permanent,” he said. “If you sing a text, especially when you are young, you will remember it for life,” Bruce said.

His goal, he said, “is to have every singer in the United States sing this piece. I’ve got a long way to go, but the performance in Bristol will be Number 24. One step at a time.”

Collins quit in December after 22 years covering government and politics for The Bristol Press. He is now freelancing for CT News Junkie, an online news site, and recently wrote an e-book on what a Donald Trump presidency might be like.

A small reception will follow the 99 Summer St. concert in Bristol, which is sponsored in part by Wesleyan University, the Yarde family and C.V. Mason Insurance Agency.

For more information, call Jackie or Steve Majerus-Collins at (860) 523-9632 (home) or (860) 655-8188 (cell), or write to [email protected].

Neely Bruce rehearses for the benefit concert. Courtesy photo