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The composer of

Considering Matthew Shepard

and the artistic director of Conspirare, Craig Hella Johnson

leads a performance from the piano.

Bachakademie Stuttgart. He later

completed his doctorate at Yale. Johnson

has directed choral ensembles through-

out the country, was director of choral

activities at the University of Texas, and

is now a resident artist at Texas State.

Most signi cantly, he is the founder and

artistic director of the Austin-based,

Grammy Award–winning ensemble

Conspirare, with whom he is leading a

national tour of

Considering Matthew

Shepard

this fall and spring that rst

comes to Ravinia on September .

J

O H N S O N V I V I D L Y R E C A L L S

learning of Matthew Shepard’s

murder while he was conducting

a rehearsal as the interim artis-

tic director of Chanticleer

.

A vocalist

approached him whose name also

happened to be Matt (indie singer and

songwriter Matt Alber, who, in a bit of

spiritual synchronicity, will join Con-

spirare for the performance at Ravinia).

“He came to me in tears and said, ‘His

name was Matt,’ ” Johnson recalls. “My

emotional response was really strong.

e whole thing embodied cultural-

ly what is a gay man’s fear. ere was

something about the picture that was

such a precise projection of hatred that

was so shocking, but also truthful. I

wanted to respond.”

e libretto was cra ed by the com-

poser in collaboration with poet Michael

Dennis Browne. It is remarkably well

done. ere are quotes from Hildegard

of Bingen, Dante, and William Blake, as

well as original texts and writings from

Shepard and his family. Wyoming poets

Sue Wallis and John D. Nesbitt bookend

the piece geographically. Excerpts from

Lesléa Newman’s

October Mourning:

A Song for Matthew Shepard

provide

an ine ably a ecting element with the

personi cation of the fence upon which

Shepard was brutalized. “I kept being

drawn to the fence.” Johnson recalls, “I

encountered Lesléa’s book and it became

the central portion, which I consider

the Passion section. e movement

‘All of Us’ [with Johnson’s own text] is

the heart of the piece. Beyond all our

names for ourselves, or our status, race,

or genders, where do we nd unity as a

human family? My intention was that all

these texts represent a swath of diversity

in place and time and weave the largest

tapestry possible.”

Much of the power in Shepard’s story

lies in his commonplace normality. He

could have been anyone’s child, friend,

or kid brother. He was, as the libretto

observes, an “ordinary boy.” “He looked

like so many average folks; you feel ‘this

could happen to me,’ ” Johnson a rms.

“It felt personal. One reason for that

was Matt’s parents, Judy and Dennis

Shepard. We

saw

them. ey were quick

to say, ‘We are not going to let this death

be in vain, we will do everything we can

to erase hatred and hope this does not

happen to any other child.’ It was really

Judy who guided me the rst time I

met her, when I asked how she handled

all this. She said, ‘You know Matthew

Shepard, the name known around the

world. But our son was Matt. We do the

work of Matthew Shepard, but at home

we grieve our son Matt.’ I knew I had

to bring ‘Matt’ into this; who Matt was,

beyond just a death story.”

e work’s title is denoted literally.

Johnson doesn’t proselytize or judge.

RAVINIA MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 3, 2018 – MAY 11, 2019

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