March 2023

Just back from a residency at Yale, Craig Hella Johnson shares poetry of Dorothy Walters whose poem "Beethoven Enters Heaven," Craig set to music for Conspirare's Hear Me Out. Dorothy Walters passed away last month at the age of 95. Read some of Dorothy Walters's poetry.

Photos: Eliza Gylkeson, Jocelyn Hagen, Shara Nova, and Moira Smiley.

Celebrating Women Choral Music Composers

Women composers bring their own stories, rhythms, and harmonies to choral music. Conspirare has performed and commissioned women's works for nearly 30 years. Here are a few of our favorites . . .

Craig arranged two songs by singer/songwriter Eliza Gilkyson for choir and they are audience favorites. Listen to "Requiem" and watch for "Sunflowers" which will be recorded and released next year.

Conspirare commissioned Jocelyn Hagen to put the poetry of Afghan women to music, sharing their stories in Songs for Muska, a full-length choral work. Learn more.

Later this month, The Muse Speaks will include two songs by Shara Nova, including the world premiere of "The House of Belonging," inspired by the poem by David Whyte.

And Conspirare's most recent Christmas concert included "Bellow" by Moira Smiley, a rousing audience favorite. This month's concert will include her song "Sacred Water, Sacred Soil."

Spotlight: Emily Yocum Black

A soprano from Paducah, KY, Emily Yocum Black joins Conspirare for the first time at this month’s “The Muse Speaks" concert. “Conspirare is an ensemble I’ve looked up to for a long time,” she says, and “it’s a true honor to sing under Craig with these stellar voices.”

Singing was a huge part of Emily’s upbringing. She experienced the magic of voices in spontaneous harmony sitting on her grandmother’s porch listening to her and Emily’s mom sing folk tunes and hymns with improvised guitar accompaniment. “As a little girl I’d ask my mom, ‘How do you know what notes to sing?’ and she’d reply, ‘I don’t know . . . you just feel it!’ I did finally figure out how to “just feel” those harmonies and still love to sing with my mom and grandma.”

At the University of Louisville, Emily had a rich and fulfilling choral experience, traveling to Asia and Europe for competitions. “Conspirare’s recordings were on many a Spotify playlist as I learned the repertoire,” she recalls. After completing her degrees in Vocal Performance, she returned to Paducah where she has a private voice studio. She has sung with Spire Chamber Ensemble, Artefact Ensemble, and the Saint Tikhon Choir.

Emily has found that professional singers have a very limited time with one another to find a sense of “spectacular unity” while preparing often very difficult music. “My philosophy is to know my music inside and out before arriving and to be vulnerable and open to everyone in the room during the rehearsal process,” Emily says. She values learning as much as she can from her colleagues and feels lucky she already knows a few of the sopranos she’ll be singing with this month—including Gintanjali Mathur and Miriam Sheehan.

Emily is mom to 16-month-old Quincy who has his own Spotify playlist of lullabies with “Wild Mountain Thyme” his current favorite. As for Emily, her musical taste over the years has ranged from musical theater to The Cranberries, My Chemical Romance, and Green Day to Mozella. More recent listens in her Spotify account are Brandi Carlile, Joni Mitchell, Samara Joy, Eleri Ward (“her indie-folk covers of Sondheim feed my musical theater soul”), and a whole lot of Raffi.

Emily and her husband Fowler, also a choral music lover, are co-founders of the Paducah Singers, a chamber choral ensemble of local singers that strive to present high-quality choral music to Western Kentucky.