(dramatic music) (bright music) - [Matt] Learn about Albany Pro Musica's upcoming concert, featuring the oratorio, Considering Matthew Shepard.

(piano music) And catch a performance from Michael Sentry.

It's all ahead on this episode of "AHA."

(piano music) - [Narrator] Funding for "AHA" has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fisher Malesardi, and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.

(bright music) - Hi, I'm Matt Rogowicz, and this is "AHA A House for Arts," a place for all things creative.

Coming up on Sunday, March 9th, Albany Pro Musica will present the capital region premiere of Considering Matthew Shepard, an evocative choral drama by acclaimed composer Craig Hella Johnson.

Albany Pro Musica's Opalka family artistic director, Jose Daniel Flores Carbaggio, and Deputy Executive Director Emily Sterman, joined Jade Warwick in our studio.

- Welcome Jose Daniel and Emily today to "A House for Arts."

- Oh, it's wonderful to be here.

Thank you.

- Yeah, I'm super excited to talk to you guys about Considering Matthew Shepard.

So to begin, I wanna introduce audiences to who is Matthew Shepard?

And why bring Considering Matthew Shepard to the capital region?

Why now?

- Matthew Shepard was this young student at the University of Wyoming, who was a victim of a hate crime in 1998.

This brought great national and international attention to issues surrounding the LGBTQ community.

Then there is this wonderful composer from Austin, Texas, Craig Hella Johnson, who was deeply moved by the story and decided to write, what I consider, a master work that will be heard and seen for generations.

He wanted to honor the memory of Matthew Shepard, but he also wanted to talk a little bit more about the implications of his story.

The fact that we all need to learn to understand and accept each other better, but also trying to bring a message of hope where we, precisely would hope, that love would prevail.

I knew of the work that was written in 2016, and I was intrigued because I know that Craig is a wonderful composer.

I had no idea it was such a poignant work.

I had no idea it was such a magnificent masterwork, as I said, until I got the score and started seeing it.

So from, I have had the score for several years now, and it was probably about two years ago, that I decided we wanted to do this now.

Of course, one of the sad aspects of this is that two years ago, I thought it was a relevant message, and today it's perhaps even more imminent and more relevant, relevant that we talk about it.

So of course, as I said, even though it's relevant today, I anticipate this is a work that will be performed for generations.

- Yeah, it's beautiful.

Yeah, I'm very familiar with the story of Matthew Shepard and I think, I know I say this a lot, but I'm like, it's more vital than ever to hear these stories specifically today 'cause we're still going through the same thing we were going through in his generation.

So I know this editorial has like a lot of like styles of music from pop to gospel to folks music.

You know, how does having all these diverse sounds lend and help tell the story?

- Oh, it's fantastic.

You know, when, if you're involved in choral music, you're very passionate about it, and you expect that everybody will understand that they will want to go to a choral concert, but not everyone really perhaps appreciates freely or at the same level, the choral literature.

And I think the composer has done a tremendous, tremendous work in integrating different traditions, different style of music, that precisely bring people from all path of life together.

So there is music from the choral tradition.

There's some quotes on J.S.

Bach and Britten, but there's even Gregorian chant.

But then he goes to gospel and to jazz and to hymnody and to country music.

- Wow.

- And so it's the kind of music that everyone, everyone really enjoys.

It's very accessible.

But I believe that there is an implied message there from the composer.

I'm not sure that he thought about it, but I firmly believe that this is a way in which he is saying, you know, in the diversity that describes us as a nation, there's a lot of strength, there's a lot of good.

And in bringing that diversity to this work, is a way to remind us that we are one people.

- Yeah, yeah, through all that music.

'Cause you're right that having all those styles does really make it accessible for anybody to kind of listen and feel seen through those sounds.

- Exactly.

- [Jade] So that's beautiful.

- It's like people identify with the music.

- Yeah, it's like community within music.

That kind of leads to my next question, which Emily, you can answer that if you feel comfortable is I know you had a lot of voices from the community in this.

You actually brought people in from different parts of the community, from some of the LGBT community, from different types of music communities.

So what are these communities that you brought in, and why is it important for the show?

- Yeah, absolutely, thanks for the question.

So Albany Pro Musica's really always focused on community partnerships as much as possible.

We feel like it's a way of bringing in expertise and amplifying the voices of people who may be marginalized and that informs our performance.

But in this case, in addition to doing that sort of behind the scenes, we're also bringing in singers from the Albany Gay Men's Chorus, from the Albany Voices of Pride, and from some of the regional high schools and colleges so that we can have a true community chorus joining Albany Pro Musica for one of the movements of this work called All of Us.

So it'll be a really special moment in the performance where we're surrounding our audience with sound and with this message of love and tolerance.

In addition to the performance partnerships that we're offering, we're also partnering with community organizations to create some programs that will occur before the concert and immediately following.

We're also working with the art center of the capital region and with the Pride Center to create a workshop for young people who may not be familiar with Matthew's story, to kind of give them some historical context for what they'll see at the concert.

And also give them an opportunity to use art making to process some of that emotion that they'll undoubtedly be feeling with this music.

And that artwork will be inspired by the angel action that took place during the trial of Matthew's killers.

There were some hateful protesters and some of Matthew's supporters actually created angel wings to shield his family from that bigotry.

So we're really excited to be able to engage young people in that story.

And then following the concert, we're partnering with Russell Sage College to actually host a reception on campus so that all of our audience and artists can come together and kind of process and grieve and celebrate and just really keep the conversation going.

- That's beautiful.

And I think that's a really important thing.

It's like you're not, you're spreading this knowledge to younger generations who may not even know who Matthew Shepard is.

- [Emily] Yeah.

- So I have another question for you, Emily, since I know you're singing within, how's your experience been performing this piece?

It's very heavy emotionally.

- Yeah.

- But how have you been prepping and how has this experience been for you?

- Right, so, you know, we've sung plenty of emotional pieces with Albany Pro Musica in the past.

And a lot of the work that we do touches on social issues.

But this work, I think, is uniquely poignant and emotional for many of us because unlike some of the more abstract social concepts that might be touched on in a great master work by Bach or Haydn or someone, this is a work that tells a story that many of us lived through and it's a story that could happen to any one of us or any one of our friends or neighbors or family members.

And so it is really emotionally challenging, but I think the way to get through that is to kind of allow for the space of the emotional experience in rehearsal.

Get that out of the way, try not to cry too much at rehearsal, but then really focus on the technical precision.

And you know, that's the meister's job is to keep us on track and getting everything as impeccably prepared as possible, so that when we come to the performance, we're able to maintain the composure and the precision while still having a connection to the audience.

And that's been really a balance, but it's, I think we're there.

- You know, there's an intrinsic value in what Emily just described.

That first rehearsal when we were reading through the work, there was barely a dry eye in the room.

Everyone was crying through, some people could not even sing through the whole work and some people even wonder if they could perform it at that time.

But it's been, by performing this work, the chorus that which has always been a family, came now to be a family that is closer together.

There's a sense of understanding and support for each other.

So we've been going through all the stages of grief, understanding that this is not just statistics.

We're talking about a person that could be your brother, could be your son, that, you know, inspired all of us to be part of the story.

So I'm very proud of this group, Albany Pro Musica, for the kind spirit that they bring to this performance.

- Yeah, it's beautiful.

Definitely needed too.

So where can folks see Considering Matthew Shepard and where and when?

What's all the details?

- So Considering Matthew Shepard will be presented at the Choice Civic Make Music Hall on Sunday, March 9th at 3:00 PM and folks can get tickets at the box office website, which is at the Choice Make Music Hall website or on our website, albanypromusica.org/matthewshepard.

And that website also has information about the community events that we're holding.

- So like the art center workshop and everything like that?

- That's right.

And those companion events are all free and open to the public, but registration is required, so we're asking people to let us know if they're coming.

- All right, well thank you Emily and thank you Jose Daniels for coming and talking about this beautiful story and I cannot wait to see it myself.

I appreciate you both.

- Thank you for the opportunity.

- Thank you so much.

(piano music) (dramatic music) - Thanks for joining us.

For more arts, visit wmht.org/aha and be sure to connect with us on social.

I'm Matt Rogowicz.

Thanks for watching.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Funding for "AHA" has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fisher Malesardi, and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.