This year’s Masterworks concert culminates in a piece that is as painfully resonant today as when it was composed.
The concert, which features a mass choir, orchestra and soloists, is May 4 at 4 p.m. in Memorial Hall and is free and open to the public.
The third and final number is Considering Matthew Shepard, a 25-minute choral suite condensed from the original oratorio, by Craig Hella Johnson.
The other works are Three Nocturnes by Dan Forrest and Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate.
Three Nocturnes comprises choral settings of poems by Sara Teasdale, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman.
Exsultate, jubilate is a work for solo soprano and instrumental ensemble.
Dr. Lydia Bechtel, a professor of voice at Friends University, Wichita, is the featured soprano soloist.
Considering Matthew Shepard was Johnson’s first full-length concert piece. The Austin, Texas-based choral ensemble Conspirare, which Johnson founded and directs, premiered the 105-minute oratorio in 2016.
Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old gay student at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, who died Oct. 12, 1998, six days after two men kidnapped, beat and tied him to a fence along a remote road, leaving him to die. It remains to this day one of America’s most notorious anti-LGBTQ hate crimes.
Johnson later condensed the oratorio to a 25-minute choral suite, which will be performed for the Bethel Masterworks.
Considering Matthew Shepard is composed in a variety of musical styles. The full work incorporates poetry by Hildegard of Bingen, Lesléa Newman, Michael Dennis Browne, Rabindranath Tagore and Rumi, along with passages from Shepard’s personal journal, interviews and writings from his parents, and more.
Conspirare’s recording of the piece was nominated for a Grammy® award. Considering Matthew Shepard was featured in a PBS documentary in 2018. The full-length oratorio and the choral suite continue to be performed around the world.
“Matt Shepard and his story have led me on an inspiring, challenging and deeply meaningful journey that I continue to this day,” Johnson said.
“In composing Considering Matthew Shepard, I wanted to create, within a musical framework, a space for reflection, consideration and unity around his life and legacy.”
Bethel College’s annual Masterworks, under the direction of Dr. Henry Waters, features all Bethel choral ensembles, faculty, staff and community singers, and an orchestra that also comprises current students, faculty and community musicians.
Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel was the first Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Community Healing and Transformation (TCHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see https://www.bethelks.edu
