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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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