The Toledo Choral Society will present composer Craig Hella Johnson’s “Considering Matthew Shepard” Sunday, June 11 at 3 p.m. in the University of Toledo’s Doermann Theatre, 2801 Bancroft St., Toledo.
Tickets are $25. Click to purchase.
“Considering Matthew Shepard” is a three-movement oratorio memorializing a victim of anti-gay hatred. Shepard was brutally attacked and left to die on a fence outside of Laramie, Wyoming.
In 2018, Johnson told BG Independent: “Certainly this project is to honor the memory of Matthew, so that we wouldn’t forget … and people would learn about Matt and what happened and what happens when some of the language we use then can become permeated in our culture.”
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Wanting to reach a broad audience, Johnson employs a wide range of vernacular sounds including spoken text, cowboy tunes, American hymns, popular song, spirituals, and jazz. Like the familiar hymns used by Bach in his Passions, these serve as “friendly entry points,” the composer said.
