On May 4, Oberlin College Choir and Musical Union, under Associate Professor of Conducting and Director of Vocal Ensembles Gregory Ristow, OC ’01, performed Considering Matthew Shepard by Craig Hella Johnson.
Double-degree second-year Samantha Lewis sang the aria “The Fence (one week later).” She described the piece’s origins.
“It’s a very beautiful oratorio, remembering Matthew Shepard, who was a young college student at the University of Wyoming,” Lewis said. “He was brutally beaten and tied to a fence, left to die by Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney. … His death is seen as a hate crime against LGBTQ+ people, so when news of his death was spread, it was a very sad time for many people, and a lot of people came together to honor Matthew Shepard.”
Johnson’s oratorio does just that through a patchwork featuring references to many recognizable classical pieces alongside country, blues, and spirituals. Likewise, Johnson compiles many sung and spoken texts, some by the composer, some by established poets, some by Shepard himself. Daniel Ladinsky’s poem, “In Need of Breath,” is given to the character of Shepard, sung by Conservatory first-year Venus Minaya. Ristow identifies this as the moment when Shepard transforms from an ordinary boy into a light for the future. However, Minaya struggled to tell Shepard’s story.
“It’s very important to keep the story of Matthew Shepherd alive despite it not necessarily being what he wanted his story to be,” Minaya said. “The words ‘ordinary boy,’ and ‘could be any boy’ are used a lot in the piece, and it really speaks to the fact that he was just a regular, everyday boy who loved regular things, and his story was turned into one of martyrdom. … We know so little about him. Even the words that are in that aria aren’t his words … so it was very difficult to really find a character there.”
Ristow, conversely, spoke of the pertinent personal significance the piece held for him, considering the impact of Shepard’s death on his community.
“First of all, I think it’s just a great piece and I would like to imagine that there’s going to be a world in 20 years where this piece no longer feels relevant,” Ristow said. “The story of Matthew Shepherd is, in my mind, very connected to Oberlin because I was a junior here when Matthew died. I remember so clearly coming into a choral conducting class, and one of my classmates saying, ‘Greg, did you read about that boy in Wyoming?’ And I was like, ‘What?’ The year before that, there had been some protesters on Tappan Square with the classic, ‘God Hates F*gs,’ ‘AIDS is God’s Cure for Homosexuality’ placards. And there had been basically no response from the College. Then, about a year and a half after Matthew died, Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church who protested at Matthew’s funeral came to Oberlin, and when we found out they were coming, the College organized what they called a Day of Fun — effectively a day to promote love and unity over hate. I look out at Tappan Square, and I remember the Methodist Church was there, the Episcopal Church was there, First Church was there. I was young and naive, and in my mind there was this polarity of religion versus homosexuality, and just seeing all these people, both from the College and the community, coming out to say, ‘We will not tolerate this hatred,’ was so remarkable to me. That was a period in my life where I was coming to terms with my own sexuality and working through a lot of internalized self-hatred around that, and that was a transformative moment of my life. As the years have gone on, I’ve thought back a lot on that and the difference between 1997 and … 2000 with Westboro Baptist Church, and the whole community — not just the LGBT community — responding. I think really, we owe that to Matthew. His death struck a chord so broadly in American society.”
Sarah Whitman, a Musical Union member, also remembered the impact of Shepard’s death.
“I graduated high school in ’98, so that was a very culturally significant thing that happened right at an important age for me — I was just becoming an adult,” Whitman said. “Different groups I knew — for instance, where I went to school, churches I attended with friends — they all had different views on things like homosexuality. I would say it was ignored by people, but when [Shepard died] there was a huge cultural shift. It was so significant how it humanized everything … Every mom thought, ‘It could be my kid.’ Men thought it could be their brother, their son. It opened the doors for people to come to more tolerance and acceptance.”
In addition to sweeping in last minute to cover the solo “Keep It Away From Me,” Whitman sang in a solo quartet movement, which Ristow pointed out.
“It’s a piece that is about the most radical kind of empathy,” Ristow said. “There’s the movement in the middle, the solo quartet, ‘I Am Like You,’ of empathetically imagining, ‘What would it have been to be raised as Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson were? To have those views of hatred cultivated in you from your childhood?’”
Whitman expressed this movement is her favorite in the piece.
“Ensemble singing is where my heart is,” Whitman said. “When I got the opportunity to be in that, it was thrilling. It’s also a very profound moment. It took a lot of preparing and really coming to grips with that character and considering how I might compare to these two men.”
While promoting empathy, it certainly has heavier sections, and the optimistic score was balanced by accompanying projections, designed by Elliott Forest for the 2016 Conspirare tour of the piece, with pictures of some of Shepard’s notebooks and the Westboro Church’s protests. It adds the weight of reality.
“In a way, I find it easier to conduct this piece than to sing or listen to it because there’s just a lot to do.” Ristow said. “‘What’s coming up? Who needs support in this moment?’ Also, as a conductor, you’re steering the pacing of it so much; there’s a little bit of a safety in knowing where and how this is going to go. One of the things we talked a lot about in rehearsals was the idea that often, as singers, we’re called upon to sing roles that are challenging for us, roles that may be very different from who we are or what we believe, or roles that have a very deep emotional significance with us. … How does the emotion of this moment or the emotion of this character translate into sound? What kinds of consonants? What kinds of vowels? What kind of tonal quality would this character have? What are the technical things I need to do to do that? What kind of physicality would this character have? When do I take on that physicality? When do I let that physicality go to help make it possible to deliver the story and also have enough distance to work? Because breathing is so connected to our emotional state that if we get very emotional, that technique goes out the window… It’s great to experience that emotional pinnacle moment as a performer, but it’s probably best not to do it in performance so that you can make space for the audience to have that experience.”
