Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson
Craig Hella Johnson, Artistic Director of the Victoria Bach Festival since 1992, has earned a reputation as one of the finest choral conductors in the United States. Johnson's work with the Festival has featured innovative programming and groundbreaking performances of masterworks such as J.S. Bach's Mass in B minor, Brahms' A German Requiem, and Mendelssohn's Elijah.
Of the 2000 performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Michael Greenberg of the San Antonio Express-News wrote "A full 24 hours after it was over, it was still with me—a fleet, magisterial account of J.S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion, conducted with total authority and sweeping sense of line by Craig Hella Johnson." Greenberg also had high praise for the 2005 performance of Michael Tippett's wartime oratorio A Child of Our Time: "this was a performance of great depth, huge intensity, and ecstatic engagement." Victoria Bach Festival performances have been frequent features of National Public Radio's Performance Today.
Johnson is also the Artistic Director and founder of the Grammy®-nominated professional choral ensemble Conspirare, based in Austin, TX. Since 1991, he has assembled some of the finest singers in the country to create a world-class, award-winning ensemble committed to creating dynamic choral art. His performances and innovative programming with Conspirare have drawn national attention and are consistently praised for their musical integrity and depth of artistry.
A unique aspect of Johnson's programming is his signature collage style: programs that marry music and poetry to seamlessly blend the sacred and secular as well as the classical and contemporary. Developed through the immensely popular Conspirare annual Christmas at the Carillon event, Johnson's collage style has been praised by audiences and critics alike. In 2006, Conspirare performed at the North Central American Choral Director's Association convention where Johnson was commissioned to develop a peace-themed program for massed choir. In 2007, Johnson completed a month long residency with the St. Olaf choir that concluded with a collage-style performance.
Conspirare's 2007 NEA grant award helped to fund the 2007 American Masterpieces Festival Crossing the Divide: Exploring Influence and Finding Our Voice. This 3-day festival featured clinics, workshops, 4 world-premiere performances and a massed choir performance of over 600 singers. Guest clinicians and composers included Rob Kapilow, Mark Shapiro, Weston Noble, John Muehleisen, Stephen Paulus, Joe Jennings and Henry Leck.
In June of 2005, Conspirare received the coveted Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence from Chorus America. This award is presented annually to the ensemble that demonstrates artistic excellence, a strong organization structure, a commitment to outreach, and culturally diverse activities. Conspirare joins other choral luminaries such as Chanticleer, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, VocalEssence and the Dale Warland Singers as a recipient of this award.
In addition to his work as a conductor, Johnson is also a composer and arranger. He is the editor of a new choral series with G. Schirmer that features some of his own works and pieces by other outstanding composers and arrangers. Johnson's works are also published by Alliance.
From 1999-2003, Johnson served as the Music Director of the Houston Masterworks Chorus. Performances of J. S. Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sea Symphony and Delius' Sea Drift elicited enthusiastic critical acclaim. In the 1998-1999 season, Johnson served as Artistic Director of San Francisco-based Chanticleer, the only full-time professional chorus in the US. Johnson was also Director of Choral Activities at the University of Texas at Austin from 1990-2001, where he led the graduate program in choral conducting.
A native of Minnesota, Johnson studied at St. Olaf College, the Juilliard School, and the University of Illinois, and earned his doctorate at Yale University. Under the auspices of a National Arts Fellowship, he was a student of Helmuth Rilling at the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart, Germany.
"He is rare—I felt fortunate to be able to hear what I always dreamt about." ~ John Corigliano, Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award-winning composer.
