Video Preview: ‘Considering Matthew Shepard’ by Choral Artists
A short preview of Craig Hella Johnson’s ‘Considering Matthew Shepard’ performed by Choral Artists of Sarasota
In the many years he has led Choral Artists of Sarasota, Artistic Director Joseph Holt has rarely heard as strong a reaction as last year’s performance of “Considering Matthew Shepard” about the University of Wyoming student who was beaten, tortured and left for dead on a fence in 1998.
“It had such a powerful impact on that audience,” Holt said.
Sarasota County School Board member Tom Edwards and others told him, “this is really such a vital piece, we need to hear it again. Is it possible to hear it again?”
Choral Artists tried to quickly schedule a second performance but with the group’s participation last summer in the 80th anniversary of D-Day observance in France, “there just wasn’t time.”
But the ensemble will once again perform Grammy-winner Craig Hella Johnson’s piece, which had its premiere in 2016 with Conspirare, the choral ensemble he founded. It has since been performed by more than 40 choirs around the world. It will be presented on April 5 at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Sarasota.
Holt agrees that it needs to be heard again, “maybe more now than even last year with everything that’s happened since the election.”
During the performance last year, a lot of tears were shed, he said.
“There are a lot of aspects of this case we just don’t know” about what led two men to beat Shepard and leave him to die in frigid temperatures outside Laramie, Wyoming.
“You recognize the inhumanity of what happened, but at the end of it, there’s a certain amount of hope for the future,” he said. “We need to experience these events so we can learn from them and take positive steps so these things don’t happen again.”
“Considering Matthew Shepard” features the entire Choral Artists roster, plus extra singers, and soloists from the chorus itself.
Holt said the performance remains topical because of a national movement to limit the rights of LGBTQ+ people. Sarasota seems like a “bubble area of very supportive and understanding organizations and religious institutions that I think are genuinely empathetic and sympathetic to the plight of every single person. Fortunately, there was never a question about whether the subject matter was appropriate.”
He hopes that people who were moved last year will return because “our understanding of these musical experiences changes over time. We have no qualms about hearing the Beethoven fifth symphony or Handel’s Messiah year after year, not that I’m comparing this to those chestnuts. But I think as things change in the world, we’ll hear something new.”
He also hopes to “get a new audience to experience this moving piece. Of course, the audience that needs to hear this will likely never darken the door of the venue. Those are the people we want to reach out. If they just experience something on that level, it might changes their minds. It might change their hearts.”
‘Considering Matthew Shepard’
By Craig Hella Johnson. Performed by Choral Artists of Sarasota, 4 p.m. April 5, First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1031 S. Euclid Ave., Sarasota. Tickets are $40, $5 for students. 941-387-6046; choralartistssarasota.org
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