SPRINGFIELD -- A Drury University music professor will be honored in the nation's capitol this weekend with a grand performance. Carlyle Sharp put together a classical piece of music and it's being performed on one of the nation's biggest stages, The Kennedy Center.

"All music is viable -- and it's making those connections," said Sharpe.

If you were asked to name that tune (click on the video icon to hear music samples), you might be thinking "pop song" or "Broadway hit." Instead, this is part of a classical piece that the Washington Chorus will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday.

"I'm a little speechless," Sharpe laughed.

Sharpe is also known as C. Sharpe.

"Actually, the ending came first," he said.

He's an assistant music professor at Drury and a composer.

"I knew the poem had an optimistic ending. I wanted to set it in a quiet way with shimmering strings and woodwinds," said Sharpe.

Sharpe adapted a poem by Walt Whitman, "Proud Music of the Storm," and set it to music.  It's a poem with words like tumultuous, powerless, dirge and desolation. It comments on war and offers hope.

"The last set of the text is 'Let us go forth in the bold day and write' basically a comment on humankind going forth and writing history despite all the travails and despair that may have preceded it," said Sharpe.

It's an honor to be heard in a place billed as America's national cultural center.  The piece runs about a half hour.  Sharpe can hope the appeal will echo for centuries.

Sharpe says the Springfield-Drury Civic Orchestra and the Drury Choral program will perform "Proud Music of the Storm" in October or November.