Xingyi Zhu

I’ve always been really passionate about music ever since I was young and started playing the piano. Music has been a big interest of mine and I’m always looking for more opportunities to enjoy it. I’ve been to a few Conspirare concerts when I was younger and they were always so amazing and I’ve been thinking about volunteering and I thought Conspirare would be the perfect fit for me. I’ve been an ambassador for Conspirare for about a year now and it’s been great!

One task I really like is ticket checking. I enjoy meeting and helping patrons check into concerts. I used to think that I would be too nervous to engage with people, but interacting with patrons helped me overcome that and become a lot more social.

My favorite classical piece is the Winter Wind piano etude by Chopin. Classical aside, I also really enjoy pop music and K-pop along with many other genres of music.

Currently I’m not volunteering with any other groups as I’m focused on school. However I do hope to get more opportunities to volunteer with groups in the future!

To learn more about our Ambassador program, click here!

Joel Brauer: Inspiring a Legacy of Inspiration, Unity and Abiding Love Through Music 

​Joel Brauer enriched and blessed the lives of those who knew him.  As a fifth-generation pastor, Joel Brauer followed the family calling with a ministry that focused on compassion, forgiveness, and love. When Joel passed away recently, his family created a fund in his honor to enable Conspirare to create new choral works that reflect the values they share. In this way, they hope his legacy of acceptance, love, and community continues through new choral works that express the beauty and potential of our world.

One of Mary’s favorite memories of her brother was the summer of 1970 when she toured Europe singing with the St. Olaf Choir and Joel, a post graduate student at Cambridge, was able to come along.  He attended every concert, “persuading” her to press his sport coat each evening and providing nightly unsolicited performance critiques.

“Joel believed in the power of music to move people,” Mary recalls. “He particularly understood the potential of combining text with music as transformative in nature. Choral music brings Joel’s memory to life for me.”

A favorite memory Mary Delk and Sarah Brauer, Joel’s daughter, share is when he visited Austin in 2016 to see Sarah sing in Conspirare’s world premiere of Considering Matthew Shepard.

Sarah recalls of her father: “He was a good listener. I’d tell him about the spiritual discoveries I was having as I sang that work,” she says. Once he told her: “Singing is your ministry. What you’re preaching through your voice is love.”

“Joel was vibrant and fully engaged in the presence of another,” Mary adds, “and he had a deep appreciation of beauty.”  Audiences will benefit greatly from the new music that Conspirare will bring to life thanks to Joel’s family’s thoughtful generosity.

A Few of Joel Brauer’s Favorite Things:

• Golf with close friends (though he fought with his clubs weekly)
• Family gatherings (especially meals)
• Books (poetry and history especially)
• All things British (Anglican cathedrals, hiking in the Lake District, Helen Mirren)
• Conspirare’s recording of “Sure on This Shining Night”