Who We Are
Conspirare
Craig Hella Johnson
Symphonic Choir
People
Conspirare is a GRAMMY®-winning choir and nonprofit performing arts and music education organization that believes in the power of music to change lives, inspire peace, and foster belonging. Conspirare was established in 1991 in Austin, Texas, by Craig Hella Johnson and a band of dedicated supporters.
Conspirare shares the gift of singing through:
- Conspirare: A Company of Voices – Our GRAMMY®-winning professional choir that performs, records, and teaches.
- Conspirare Symphonic Choir – Our choir of volunteer musicians who audition and perform.
- Music in Schools – Our musicians inspire and uplift choir students and their teachers at low-income middle and high schools through master classes and free performances.
- Big Sing – Free community singing opportunities held at public places like schools, libraries, and museums.
Our Impact
Last season Conspirare’s music inspired and uplifted:
- 4,000 people at live performances, including 600 listeners joining us for the first time.
- 200 choir students and their teachers at six low-income middle and high schools with master classes provided at no cost to them.
- 13 choirs and their audiences who performed Considering Matthew Shepard with consulting from Craig Hella Johnson and valued resources.
- 12,000 YouTube viewers watching from home or choir classrooms.
- Spotify listeners who heard Conspirare’s music 74,000 times in one month alone!
Highlights from 30 Years of Song
We start as The New Texas Festival, an annual week-long choral music festival. The next year we debut our first Christmas concert at the intimate Carillon.
We become Conspirare, inspired by the power of music to transform lives.
We release our first commercial recording, Through the Green Fuse (Clarion).
Chorus America, the national organization supporting choral leaders, honors our work with the Margaret Hills Award for Choral Excellence.
Our recording Requiem (Clarion) earns Grammy nominations for Best Choral Performance and Best Engineered Album, Classical.
We perform at the grand opening of the Long Center, Austin’s brand-new performing arts center.
Our recording Threshold of Night earns GRAMMY® nominations for Best Choral Performance and Best Classical Album on the Harmoni Mundi label.
“A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert,” a PBS special, premiers to millions of viewers and earns a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Classical Crossover.
We win the Edison Award (Dutch equivalent of Grammys) for Requiem (Harmonia Mundi’s 2009 re-release).
Our founding artistic director Craig Hella Johnson is named Texas State Musician.
The Sacred Spirit of Russia, our seventh recording, wins the GRAMMY® Award for Best Choral Performance.
Our recording Path of Miracles is awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik in Germany.
Our tenth recording, Pablo Neruda: The Poet Sings, is nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Choral Performance.
We premiere Craig Hella Johnson’s first full-length composition, Considering Matthew Shepard, moving critics and audiences and earning a GRAMMY® nomination.
We perform by invitation at the interment of Matthew Shepard’s ashes at the Washington National Cathedral.
We are honored with a Texas Medal of Arts Award by the Texas Cultural Trust.
During the pandemic, when many choirs stop performing, we expand the bounds of choral performance with innovative free live in-home experiences and grow the Conspirare family to encompass the globe.
We gather 15 composers to commission songs for today, performed over two nights as Hear Me Out.
We record and release our 33rd recording, House of Belonging, featuring new works by Sharon Nova and Alex Berko performed with the Miró Quartet.