Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - The Singing Guitar (2020) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Music for choir and guitars with Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Texas Guitar Quartet, Austin Guitar Quartet and cellist Douglas Harvey.

The wonderful Conspirare chamber choir, known for its interpretive depth and otherworldly sonic lushness, offers another of its captivating programs—this time joined by three superb guitar quartets—in a program remarkably relevant to our time.

Nico Muhly’s musical mediation How Little You Are evokes powerful landscapes of American pioneers in a compelling work for choir and 12 guitars; soprano Estelí Gomez is a featured soloist. Kile Smith’s The Dawn’s Early Light sets selected text from Native American Sarah Winnemucca’s autobiography that addresses the significant divisions in our human family. 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 set in Muhly’s piece.

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail’s “When the Guitar,” in a new instrumentation created for Conspirare and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, opens the album. Conspirare’s sopranos and altos join cellist Douglas Harvey in Craig Hella Johnson’s “The Song That I Came to Sing”.

Conspirare gratefully acknowledges the following for their support of this recording: Anonymous, Dale and Tina Knobel, Legacy of Sound 2, Hella Circle, CAPTRUST: STMM, National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, City of Austin Economic Development Department, Cultural Arts Division and St. Luke’s Methodist Church.

“I always want to find ways for listeners to have their own rich experience of knowing a work deeply and being moved by its unique language and expression.” (Craig Hella Johnson)

TRACKLIST

1. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - When the Guitar
2. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - How Little You Are: No. 1, We Washed Our Faces at the Spring
3. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - How Little You Are: No. 2, Do You Remember
4. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - How Little You Are: No. 3, A Long-Drawn Wall
5. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - How Little You Are: Interlude. Springtime
6. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - How Little You Are: No. 4, How Little You Are
7. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - How Little You Are: No. 5, The Night Herders
8. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - The Dawn's Early Light: No. 1, I, Sarah Winnemucca
9. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - The Dawn's Early Light: No. 2, My Grandfather Jumped Up
10. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - The Dawn's Early Light: No. 3, While They Were Fishing
11. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - The Dawn's Early Light: No. 4, The Paiutes Are Not Fond of Going to War
12. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - The Dawn's Early Light: No. 5, The Star-Spangled Banner
13. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - The Dawn's Early Light: No. 6, I Shall Be Beautiful
14. Conspirare & Craig Hella Johnson - The Song That I Came to Sing



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