Conspirare Opens Season with 12 Guitars and Grammy Award-Winning Vocalists

2019 Texas Medal of Arts recipient Conspirare opens its 2019-20 season with The Singing Guitar, featuring Conspirare vocalists and the Grammy Award winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Texas Guitar Quartet andAustin Guitar Quartet. Presented in conjunction with Austin Classical Guitar. Two performances only:

• November 2 at 8:00 PM in Austin, TX at the Austin ISD Performing Arts Center
• November 3 at 7:30 PM in Houston, TX at St. Luke's UMC

Tickets start at $20 are available at Conspirare's website. This concert will become Conspirare's next internationally-released recording.

EVOKING BEAUTY AND WONDER

The Singing Guitar features a return of Nico Muhly's How Little You Are, a setting of texts by pioneer women for a choir of guitars and voices. "I know the piece will have universal appeal, but in Texas it is particularly special to feature the guitar so prominently. I want listeners to experience the detail and delicacy of this exquisite score," said Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson.

The evening includes two works created especially for Conspirare and the LAGQ. Conspirare will give the regional premiere of Indian-American composer Reena Esmail's "When the Guitar." Cellist Doug Harvey will join the ensembles for the world premiere of "The Dawn's Early Light" by Kile Smith. Photographer Stephen Pruitt will curate images for the concert.

BEHIND THE MUSIC

Johnson curated a program woven together by exquisitely crafted music for and voices guitar and stories of women. The texts present contrasting perspectives of Sara Winemucca, the first Native American to publish and English language narrative, and the pioneer women whose texts are used in Muyly's piece.

Nico Muhly is an American composer and sought-after collaborator whose influences range from American minimalism to the Anglican choral tradition. How Little You Are is a musical meditation on texts of Elinore Pruitt Stewart's Letters of a Woman Homesteader Mary Alma Blankenship's texts from Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine. The work was commissioned by Texas Performing Arts and the premiere garnered reviews like this one from the Austin-American Statesman: "It's a strong, moving work, a richly detailed piece of art that takes worthy stories from the West and makes them into something more than the sum of their parts, piecing just tiny fragments of these women's lives together in a buzzing, humming vibrating piece of music that manages to move you not just intellectually, but emotionally."

Johnson commissioned Smith for his "clear, penetrating and mature compositional voice." Audiences responded enthusiastically to Smith's Canticle last Spring and "The Dawn's Early Light" sets texts from Native-American author and advocate Sarah Winnemucca's Life Among the Piutes. "For the Guitar" was composed by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail in an arrangement of created especially for Conspirare and The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.

The works on this concert will be recorded for later release. The recording is partially funded by a $35,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant.

The Nov. 3 concert at St. Luke's is made possible partly through the Friends of Music, a group of generous individuals who help make beautiful music happen weekly at the church, in addition to bringing in outstanding world-class ensembles, including Conspirare, for the enjoyment of the congregation and the broader community. Other programs supported by Friends of Music include orchestras for the Christmas Festival; brass for Easter services; solo instrumentalists throughout the year and special vocal soloists such as Ken Medema, Cynthia Wilson and Nate Lucena.