Look to the right of the post title to find the orange audio play button to listen to the title track of "Unclouded Day."

It’s an especially busy and exciting time of year for our friends at Conspirare! In the last two weeks, they’ve received their sixth Grammy nomination and performed holiday concerts at The Carillon, the Long Center, for group of women at the Travis Country Correctional Unit, and on tour outside of the city. They also have a new holiday CD available this month and Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson managed to find a few minutes to speak with KMFA’s Music Director Chris Johnson

For anyone who doesn’t know about Conspirare’s annual Christmas concerts, can you give us a short history about the genesis of the concerts in addition to how you approach programming them?

As a choral musician, it is one’s paramount duty and obligation to create concerts for the singing holiday season. Choral music is most listened to during these times around the holidays. I love carols, anthems, Messiah, the Christmas oratorio of Bach and all the great choral literature that is written for this season.  That being said, I sensed in all of the audiences I was conducting concerts for a certain numbness, a way in which this music was not connecting in a direct way. This bothered me. I wanted other people to connect with this music that I really loved. So I reflected on how we could create a concert format or approach that could meet them where they were, and especially people who did not have any connection with choral music.

I began experimenting and began to insert interpolations inbetween the classical pieces which I was programming. The specific purpose was not to become a kind of cross-over concert. It was very specifically to provide pointers utilizing musical song fragments that could illuminate the classical pieces that we were programming. Another aspect of this was this dance between the sacred and the secular. This middle ground has always been of great interest to me and I wanted to perhaps question our notions of what is sacred and what is not. It was in this spirit that these concerts began. 

Today when I begin to create a new program I approach it as a listener. That is to say I try to listen for what is moving in the world, what will serve listeners, and what will meet them so that this program can be a timely and sensitive presentation. At this point I feel that any music is fair game for potential inclusion. Underneath this, for me, is still a liturgical structure similar to what I grew up with.  As odd as this may sound, I often feel that these concerts are very traditional and orthodox. They are orthodox from a structural standpoint, they just don’t sound like it on the surface. For some listeners this has been refreshing, for others provocative, for others annoying.

Tell me about the CD title, “Unclouded Day.” What’s the thread that runs through the program on this CD?

The Unclouded Day title comes from a track of the same name on the CD. Unclouded Day is a really exciting arrangement by Shawn Kirchner of an American tune by J.K. Alwood. The singers and I really connected with the arrangement and felt happy when singing it. Also, because our modern lives feel so very complex, it felt wonderful to share this quite radical notion of an unclouded day. 

The thread in this program is that of a journey from contraction to openness. I like for the music at the beginning to meet people where they may be in their everyday lives. That meeting place is a broad spectrum of human experiences, many which may be difficult and challenging. Then we move towards fulfillment of an open heart and really claiming that open-heartedness and freedom as our true human essence. To me it feels essential that people have this sense of wholeness and openness reflected back to them and music has a powerful way of communicating this.

These concerts are incredibly popular. What do you think brings your audience back year after year?

My sense is that if we asked our audience that question there would be many different answers.  I think people are drawn to musical expressions during this season that do not feel rote or conditioned. During this season people are especially open to hearing messages at a deeper level and in a way, my sense is that they almost expect that music will do that. I also find it is of interest to listeners that the concerts are unique year after year. I also feel that the structure of styles feels close to where we live, reflecting fragmented lives, and also reflecting  the varied musical offerings and formats (i.e. iPod, iPod mashups, playlists, etc) available.

Do you have a favorite memory of a particular Christmas concert? Why?

A powerful memory for me comes from one of the first times we tried the collage type format. The audience was extremely quiet through the whole performance. From where I was with my back to the audience I could not get a clear sense if that was a passive disinterested silence or a very engaged stillness. As the concert went on I felt that veil between performers and audience dropping. It was this amazing rush of connection that somehow yes, indeed, this was getting through. Listeners were receiving it.

On a lighter note, one of my really crazy memories is from the Christmas at the Carillon concert in 1994. During one of the concert’s tender moments the cleaning staff came and began to vacuum the blinds behind the stage where we were performing. There was no way we could reach them and so they vacuumed the blinds for the next 10 or 15 minutes. It was funny and humbling.