we sing hope.
Conspirare connects hearts through music. We nurture a circle of creative voices and thoughtful listeners. Our choral concerts provide audiences around the country with transformative experiences long remembered, talked about, and treasured.
history
Established in 1991 as the New Texas Festival to present a summer classical music festival in Austin, Conspirare has evolved into an international phenomenon, lauded for artistry, innovation and mastery at making music that matters to audiences worldwide.
Conspirare’s professional core is its chamber choir, The Company of Voices. Its members are renowned choral and solo artists who come to Austin from all over the country for our annual concert season. The highly acclaimed volunteer Symphonic Choir and gifted Conspirare Youth Choirs also perform throughout the year in collaboration with other Austin cultural organizations.
highlights
Conspirare's first commercial recording,through the green fuse (Clarion, 2004), established an abiding musical legacy, followed by Requiem (Clarion, 2006), which earned Grammy® nominations for Best Choral Performance and Best Engineered Album, Classical. Harmonia Mundi’s 2009 re-release of Requiem in America and Europe garnered the 2010 Edison Award for recording excellence in the Choral Music category.
Our first collaboration with the prestigious Harmonia Mundi label
yielded Threshold of Night (2008) and earned Grammy nominations for Best Choral Performance and Best Classical Album.
“A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert”
premiered to universal acclaim on PBS in March 2009, showcasing our choral work to millions of viewers and earning a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Crossover.
Sing Freedom! African American Spirituals releases in Fall 2011,
also on the Harmonia Mundi label, and explores many traditional as well as lesser-known settings of this fundamental American music. The CD also features premieres of new settings by renowned composers David Lang, Tarik O’Regan and Robert Kyr. The project pays lasting tribute to the unknown creators of songs that invite us into the universal heart.
We are a recognized choral leader and innovator,
winning Chorus America’s Margaret Hills Award for Choral Excellence (2005) and the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award (2010) to support composer Eric Banks’ new work. We are also proud to be a featured performer at regional and national conferences of the American Choral Directors Association.
The National Endowment for the Arts has honored us repeatedly.
In 2007, the NEA selected Conspirare to present “Crossing the Divide: Exploring Influence and Finding Our Voice,” a four-day choral festival celebrating composers, conductors, singers, musicians and audiences. Conspirare was one of a handful of organizations around the country chosen to be part of this national celebration of singing. Recent major grants have supported our newest CD release Sing Freedom! African American Spirituals, our upcoming recording of Samuel Barber’s choral works, and a multi-city tour of the Midwest in March 2012.
We are musical ambassadors at home and abroad,
representing America at the Eighth World Symposium on Choral Music in Copenhagen (2008), joining choirs from nearly 40 nations. The following year we led a Peace Event at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.
Our “Big Sing” represents a deep commitment to the power of singing.
In our 2009-2010 season we began transforming the audience into the choir, with Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson leading music lovers in vocal warm-ups and easy-to-learn melodic songs. These events, instantly popular in Austin, have also inspired audiences in New York City, which hosted two Big Sings in February 2010.
“Renaissance & Response: Polyphony Then and Now”
was a ground-breaking, weekend-long festival in January 2011, showcasing the works of Josquin Des Prez, Orlandus Lassus, Tomás Luis de Victoria and J.S. Bach in four distinct programs, each featuring a world premiere by series composer-in-residence, Robert Kyr. The Wall Street Journal called it “a powerful new achievement in American music that vividly traces a journey from despair to transcendence.”
Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute
brought us to the Big Apple to perform three concerts in February 2011, part of Weill’s Neighborhood Concert series which introduces world-class artists to diverse audiences in all five boroughs. This followed our 2003 performance at Carnegie under the auspices of the American Choral Directors Association.
We are planning a tour of the Midwest in March 2012
which will feature world premiere performances of a Conspirare-commissioned work by Eric Whitacre. Austin audiences will have a chance to preview this event prior to the start of our tour.
