Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

and Viewers like You Considering Matthew Shepard, a three part fusion oratorio by Craig Heller Johnson, is dedicated to remembering life and legacy of Matthew Shepard.

Johnson shares how this powerful piece is about transforming tragedy into a call for compassion and reflection on our shared community.

A living soundscape transforms a Cleveland museum gallery into a spiritual space for uniting voices, instruments and community in a shared frequency of care and connection.

From brown paper bags to roller skates.

Tiffany Lawson's art transforms everyday materials into stories of black life, resilience, and the freedom found in imperfection.

It's all ahead on Colores!

CONSIDERING MATTHEW SHEPARD [Chorus and Orchestra] >>Faith: So, what first moved you to create an oratorio about Mathew Shepard, and how did that evolve into Considering Matthew Shepard?

>>Johnson: Yeah, so this all started, when this happened with Matt and when he died in 1998, it was really a -- it felt like that was the original moment.

The seed was planted, because I had such a strong emotional reaction.

It was just kind of really deep and intense.

And I was living out in San Francisco and someone had shared this news with me, and it felt very sad to hear it, of course, it's tragic, but also very angry and also fearful, interestingly, because it's sort of what I think a lot of gay people fear in some way that the deepest end to people's expressed homophobia and hatred is actually physical violence, too, but you don't really know you're carrying that -- so anyway, all of that combined, I remember my response was just visceral, and I thought, I have to respond in some way to this.

So, that thought kind of stayed with me a long time.

And then the story itself just became so well known.

And Matthew's name and the family, Judy and Dennis, that it became iconic around the world for a period there.

Then I kind of started to feel cautiousness or anxiety about, do I want to take the story on that's so kind of sacred to so many people?

And it just felt like a big -- challenge.

But I eventually it just many years later, it just still was knocking on my door.

And so I began to write, and I started with the workshop.

And just to see how this might land with people and, that was a big project and very emotional.

It was amazing, we had about 500 people at this workshop and -- we sang several movements of it.

And the reaction was so strong that I took it forward and sort of -- about a year and a half later, came and presented the premiere of the complete piece.

So I got a lot of feedback, asked people kind of what their experience was -- just yeah -- it was a long personal journey, but it's been a very extraordinary part of my life, you know, leading up to that premiere in 2016.

And now since then, I've been performing it a lot.

>>Faith: So, Matthew's own words appear in this piece, and I wanted to know, how did incorporating his voice change your relationship with the work as a composer?

>>Johnson: Yeah, well, it brought it alive in some ways that it just wouldn't have felt without that.

I remember when his mother, Judy, gave me permission to sit with these journals and these notes.

It was just incredible.

It brought me, first so much closer to him just to see his handwriting.

And sometimes when we've performed it, we've had as a backdrop, some photographs of the pages of some of those journals.

And it's really touching for people in the audience to see that, too, like, “Oh, yeah, not just some sort of story that's floating out there.” This is a real young man, just ordinary boy like the movement says, who was going through this journey of his.

And, yeah, it definitely brought a lot of him more alive to me.

And so I felt like I could feel into him even more just the way he wrote even and seeing his penmanship.

And yeah, so there is -- just on many levels, it just kind of infused the piece with a lot of new life.

>>Faith: There was also like a lot of different.

I saw pieces ranging from like ancient mystics to like contemporary poetry and all of that.

How does that play into it?

How did you choose what pieces go into this?

>>Johnson: Well, my basic kind of 30,000ft up concept, too, was that I wanted this to be a really big tent.

That as a concert experience too I wanted people from a broad variety of backgrounds and, you know, places wherever they're coming from.

I thought, I want this to feel like a big welcome place.

And so musically, I wanted that to be the case.

And then in terms of text to there are some new texts, some things I wrote, some things I worked with a librettist, Michael Denis Brown, some poems that had been written right after Matthew died, by Leslie Newman.

And then, as you say, some folks like Hildegard from being and translated by Barbara Newman.

And then there's a reflection from Dante and Rumi, the great poet Rumi and, William Blake and I just I love this kind of -- spectrum across time.

It was like that music from different time, centuries apart, could even talk to each other.

And that texts from all this kind of distance in terms of time could speak along with each other and, with the hope that it would just give us a sense of, kind of a really big broad tent.

The last big movement of the piece, kind of the big finale, is called All of Us.

[Chorus & Orchestra Music] >> Johnson: And the idea was that all of us, all of us to repeat that again and again and again, like, when are we going to get that this human family is all of us.

The family of life means all of creation, nothing excluded.

So that was kind of the general place.

And then I just came from from that approach.

I just selected things that felt like they could contribute at different points along the narrative.

Yeah.

>> Faith: What part of Matthew's did you connect to the most emotionally.

>> Johnson: in his story.

you say, yeah.

I think just this ordinariness, you know, because we saw after the beating in his that his death back in 98, he just quickly became this huge figure.

And because of the way he died, visually, too, it's it was, you know, horrific and painful, but, you know, your was stretched out on that fence, you know, with his arms out wide.

So there is almost that cross image, which is a very iconic image.

And a lot of people would sort of a, you know, in the judicial process.

I don't want people to associate him with, you know, Jesus Christ or something.

And he's not a Savior.

He was just an ordinary kid, you know, he's not that into this.

That was really important to her.

And I really wanted to hear that.

And, so I think the fact that his death and for whatever reason, we don't always know exactly the why because there are, sadly, so many hate crimes.

And why does one story rise up above others and become this huge, iconic thing?

But it did for Matthew.

And so I was thinking about the the impact that his story in his life has had on so many people.

You know, it impacted legislation.

There's a hate Crimes Prevention Act in his name, but it's really important what happened as a result of this.

And, And yet he was an ordinary kid.

Like, he could have been your neighbor, and, he was just that kid going to school.

he was real opinionated.

He was kind of awkward.

He was kind of a fragile, framed guy.

Just.

Just a kid.

The person that felt very special to that, you know, so many people who knew him said he was.

So even as a kid, he just had this generosity.

And if you see someone like a kid on the playground who was hurting, you know, he'd go to them and reach out, maybe give them a flower or a stone or something, you know, just his mother and others said he had that instinct from early on as a child.

I was very touched by that always to >> Faith: What?

Out of the words that you read that he wrote, were you felt like the most powerful or influential on your compositions >> Johnson: out of the ordinary Like he did his litany where, you know, I like pizza, I like pasta, I like movies.

And, you know, just it was just that stuff that kind of lifted out, he would say some really touching and tender things too.

But in the context, what really made those special was just sort of feeling his heart.

You know, he was really wanting to connect.

I think he wanted to be.

He was in love with life a lot.

And also when he was that teenager is kind of felt like a lot of teenagers, too.

There's some wanting to connect, wanting to be in a relationship, wanting to find that love or whatever, just kind of felt all of that, you know, and I always, I always that that was very tender.

[Choir Sings] >> Faith: At its heart considering Matthew Shepard is a memorial, but it really calls to compassion.

So what do you hope audiences will carry with them after listening to this?

>> Johnson: First, that I want them to have an experience because that's always just important in a very basic way for me, is that the concert hall is a place for experience, not just a kind of two dimensional.

You sing and play and we clap, and it's just very flat to me.

But I want a real sense of connection.

And I think I guess with what I'd say too, is that, like, I tell people a lot, yeah, it's called considering Matthew Shepard.

Of course, it's about Matthew Shepard in a huge sense, but the main character for me is the audience member.

That's really who I'm focused on, and I'm very interested in that.

In telling this story in the way that I do that I always hope that people could come up with questions of reflection that might say, wow, what comes up for me when I hear this story?

Is there any way that I have a part in contributing to this culture where boys could be raised to do something like this?

You know, what's my part?

And now and this time, which is a really volatile time in our world, in our culture, just still seeing what can I attribute, what do I contribute both to the sort of harmful aspects of how displaced we all feel with one another and what can I contribute to the flow of life that can expand the heart of this world?

It can make it better.

I mean, that's how can we connect, you know?

So I like if this piece can really bring some self-reflection.

I mean, it's a it's so basic at the heart of it all.

It's just like, how can we return to one another, learn to see each other, learn to love each other again.

You know, we've just been so taught to sort of separate and predict everything that's unsettled in me until you and make it a difference.

You know, this is just our way because we've been taught.

And so, I mean, part of this is a big, like, innocent part inside of me still asking like, can we come back together?

Can we return home to each other?

[Choir Sings] >> Narrator: A spiritual connect >> Vrebalov: So the first part will be happening in the galleries, and the only two things that you are required to do musically is to, hum.

Gee, what?

Wherever in the range it's good for you.

And we have, hand percussion instruments so that we have just the right amount of other stuff going on on top of the, the drone.

One element of the Byzantine chant is a long held drone.

So I decided to have local vocalists, people from Cleveland who would join us.

And throughout the gallery's hold that basic tone.

Try to explore all possible ways of, interaction with space.

So be stationary.

Move through your space.

Be as an individual, just looking at objects or whatever and humming and interact with others.

It's really about forming a community and having people come together and uniting around the frequency.

If you need to breathe, go to the person who holds the pitch.

It's almost like having candles, you know, you start, yours goes off, you've got get closer, get the pitch, move away.

Just make it as organic and as alive as possible.

So to have these two music█s in in, in this room, in a way.

So the Byzantine gallery is the starting point for the piece.

It was really a powerful way to connect the physical world with the spiritual world.

I realized that the, icon that's in the Byzantine gallery that I chose is actually not an art object in the tradition where it comes from.

We see it as an art object because it's in the museum, but it's actually an entity that's seen in the traditional, where it's coming from as an object of power, it's associated with miracles.

It's considered to be able to heal, to grant wishes and prayers and I thought how amazing it would be to treat it in that power and to connect it to the sound that it originally would come with.

[spiritual music] >> Vrebalov: Also the same time, there will be four trumpets [ Trumpet plays] And two organs in other parts of the building.

The sound will be coming from all over the place.

So as we move through the galleries, there will always be something else to pay attention to.

>> Conductor: Hey.

Ready?

Let's go.

Feel free to change tones >> Vrebalov: and all these different patterns that we█ll be hearing from different points in space, and time will be brought all together in the atrium in the second part of the program.

That's more stationary.

I'm hoping that there will be a sense of togetherness and care and listening for each of us to connect with something larger and more important than just our immediate physical existence.

Wabi sabi.

>>Lawson: I really make work based off of what I█m experiencing, and the books that I read.

So that's a big, big part of my process growing up.

Growing up I always was a drawer, if you will.

My favorite place to draw was in the in table drawers and behind the couch.

My mother wasn't a fan of that at all.

And I've sign them.

They were all masterpieces in my mind.

So it's always been sort of my thing.

My mom ran a church program across the street, Ohio Avenue Methodist Church, and we had an art squad called the Baby Squad.

And also the workshops brought in local artists like, Aminah Robinson, Queen Brooks, Grandpa Smokey Brown, and my uncle Duarte.

So art has always been a part of my life.

Wabi sabi has very much given me freedom, because it it is very hard to sit in front of a stark white canvas and figure out where to make your first mark.

So with wabi sabi, it gave me a sense of no matter where I make the mark as imperfect as it could be, it is beautiful.

And it just freed my practice.

And so when I make mistakes, they're happy.

Mistakes like Bob Ross, it is a, esthetic of impermanence.

And there's beauty in that as it continues, as those imperfections continue to build even or age through time.

There's beauty in those.

A seat at the table actually started off as just a, a daily sketch practice sketch.

And it developed into a series in, exploring black life or even the healing component of it.

It's important for us to have a seat at the table to begin to have these conversations so that new work can be done.

And, in a lot of ways, there haven't been no seats or table.

So in regards to my several seats, I'll bring my own seat, several of them, as a matter of fact.

No two people█s seat is alike.

Everybody brings something different to the table.

So it was important to make each seat separate from each other, In my opinion, black art of the past, as we're kind of moving into a newer generation, and that's what I mean in terms of capturing joy and healing as opposed to just the, I guess it is this there are some, I guess, despair with black art.

Specifically regarding, slavery and the Great Migration and discrimination and all those things are still very much important.

But I do believe those stories have been told, and those aren't necessarily the stories that I can tell.

I would like to highlight the things that are more prevalent today, for black people, which, again, are similar, but most importantly, the healing process, like where we have come from to where we are now because there is greater work to do.

So, the healing aspect of black life, it exists, but it is, I think, in a lot of ways, just not explored There is a component of black resilience, I think, that needs to be captured in a different way.

Bricolage is a French word that means basically using things that are at hand.

This is a taquito box.

My process doing that, I believe that I am, exploring black resilience in a way that we've always had to, make use of what we have, use what you got.

And that is very much a big component of black life, mostly in general, the thing that tie the binds is they█re the brown paper bags.

So a lot of times I'll start with just, opening up the brown paper bag and I tend to consider what was in the bag, or because brown paper is very much recycled, I tend to think about the process of that recycle.

Who had the bag before me, what was in the bag?

And so that's a big part of I think what shows up on the brown bag, it gives me different aspects to kind of be creative with in regards to the imperfections of the bag.

So it brings a little bit more character.

I think, to the piece.

From the beginning, I just think of a story that I'm trying to tell.

The project that I'm working on now is, her name is Mother Durham, and I'm exploring the James Webb and Johnson's God's Trombones their seven sermons that he believes that, you know, black people have kind of thrived on.

I generally start from something that I'm reading or, again, a story that I'm trying to tell, and I use my curated media as I kind of sift through some magazines and tear out some images or, you know, cut out a lot of texture is what I find myself using.

Around the way USA very much is a exploration of community.

So on one side, it's almost a tale of two cities.

So on one side, you have a beautiful, thriving, vibrant community.

On the other side is kind of dilapidated, kind of depleted on the other side.

So I was exploring community in regard to if there is a difference between a community and a neighborhood.

Cause in a lot of cases, especially here in Columbus, as neighborhoods are being gentrified, you lose that.

It almost seems like they preserve communities or neighborhoods that they deem.

I guess, worth it.

It seems like so the communities that get washed out.

We'll never remember them because they're completely gone.

So roller skates are a big part of my process, to be quite honest.

When I'm stuck or can't figure out how things that I've made are related or how to build a work, because I very much the 3D elements I have to build, I have to actually figure out how to engineer them so they don't fall apart.

So a lot of that I do on my skates.

So I have a strobe light.

I close the curtains and I turn my music up as loud as I can.

And, you know, I kind of just twirl around here.

It does help.

It actually just takes me out of my mind in regards to my creativity for just a moment long enough to figure out how the pieces fit together.

The award winning arts and culture series Colores is now available on the PBS app, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and at nmpbs.org.

From classic episodes to brand new shows, Colores is everywhere.

Watch now on your favorite NMPBS platforms Funding for Colores was provided in part by New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts and Education Endowment Fund, and then Nellita E Walker Fund for KNMETV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation, New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

And viewers like you.