Whenever Craig Hella Johnson asks, Grammy-nominated tenor Brian Giebler says, “Yes.” Giebler reprises the role of Matthew Shepard June 28 at the Hult Center, part of the Oregon Bach Festival.
The oratorio Considering Matthew Shepard, also Grammy nominated, is Johnson’s composition. He is founding artistic director of Conspirare, an award-winning nonprofit performing arts and music education organization based in Austin, Texas. Johnson is now an artistic partner at OBF, a world-renowned classical music festival in Eugene, now in its 55th season.
Shepard was a 21-year-old gay University of Wyoming college student, brutally murdered by two men he met that October night in a bar in 1998. Both men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, are currently serving multiple consecutive life sentences for the crime.
Since then, Shepard’s tragic death has become a symbol for the gay rights movement.
Written in 2016, Johnson’s three-part Considering Matthew Shepard overlays modern musical styles on top of the classical oratorio, a form often used to tell religious stories. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is one example.
Of Giebler’s performance and why he chose him for Shepard, Johnson says, “There’s a place later in the piece that’s like an aria. It needs the vocal performance of an operatic singer, which Brian can bring.”
Johnson also says, “I have [him] singing words that Shepard wrote in his journal when he was 19. We need someone who can also handle the boyishness of that. Brian can kind of handle it all.”
“Johnson has known me since 2014,” Giebler tells Eugene Weekly in a phone call about his and Johnson’s working relationship. “He knew what I’m capable of. Oftentimes, when those types of people come to you with something, it’s usually something that is in your wheelhouse. So, for me, I knew that if Craig was trusting me with this role, I wasn’t too worried.”
In Johnson’s work, described as a “fusion oratorio,” the composer alternates between full-scale, challenging elements of classical composition, with more modern pop sounds, often recalling the songwriter-forward Broadway trend, such as Illinoise, a blockbuster show based on music from indie singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens.
Johnson, who will conduct the piece from the piano, tells EW he chose contemporary reference points purposefully to create “a really big tent,” and to “speak to the broader message of the piece, which is about belonging and inclusivity.”
Considering Matthew Shepard at OBF will be “lightly staged,” Johnson explains, compared to previous productions of the piece, which integrate elaborate theatrical elements. But like those other productions, performers will be dressed in street clothes, rather than concert black, another way Johnson hopes to highlight the modern relevance of the story.
Johnson provided text for the libretto, but the book otherwise includes works from Rumi, Hildegard von Bingen, Lesléa Newman and Michael Dennis Browne, along with Shepard’s journal entries and journalistic coverage of his murder, aftermath and trial.
In earlier stagings, many different singers played Shepard, but recently, Giebler has embraced the role on his own. He says he’s a married gay man and father, and both things are important aspects of his identity.
As Shepard, he says, he tried to “find the vulnerable parts of myself,” and “go into the dark moments of my past.”
Giebler, whose 2021 classical vocal album A Lad’s Love earned a Grammy nod, adds, “I have made no secret that I am gay and that I’ve made no secret that’s a big part of who I am and a big part of who I am as an artist.”
Shepard, he continues, “was very comfortable with himself. That’s something I’ve had to fight with: Being who I am, letting my guard down so that I can be more vulnerable on stage.”
Stephen Redfield, a violinist who says he grew up and came out in Eugene, helped develop Johnson’s work, has performed with OBF since its early days and is in the Shepard ensemble. He says it’s no coincidence that OBF is staging Matthew Shepard during Pride Month.
One highlight Johnson, Giebler and Redfield all mention is meeting Shepard’s parents, Dennis and Judy Shepard, who co-founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights after their son was killed.
In 2018, Shepard’s ashes were entrusted to the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. “Particularly personally and emotionally satisfying was to meet and hear from Matt’s parents,” says Redfield, who performed at the D.C. service.
He adds, “To perform the ‘Gently Rest’ movement,” from Considering Matthew Shepard, “at his interment when his parents finally found the comfort to release his ashes: This experience has surely changed me, and I am only a violinist. Imagine the power of singing these words, or even taking the role of Matt.”
Featuring the OBF Chorus and Modern Orchestra with production design from Camilla Tassi, Considering Matthew Shepard is 7:30 pm Saturday, June 28, in the Silva Concert Hall at the Hult Center, 1 Eugene Center. Tickets begin at $5. Johnson speaks at the Hult Center about the piece 6:30 pm that same night, part of the OBF Let’s Talk! series, free. The Oregon Bach Festival is June 27 through July 13 at various venues. For a complete listing of events, go to OregonBachFestival.org.