When Conspirare releases a new CD, you’d best pay attention. The last three discs from the Austin choral ensemble all scored Grammy nominations and one, Requiem, won an Edison, the Grammy’s Dutch equivalent. Whether the recording industry will honor the group’s new Sing Freedom! African American Spirituals in like fashion, we can’t say. But given Conspirare’s stirring work with spirituals in concert and on earlier recordings and knowing that this CD features some traditional songs in new settings by composers Tarik O’Regan (Threshold of Night) and David Lang (The Little Match Girl Passion), plus an original spiritual by Robert Kyr (Songs of the Soul), we’re betting it will be more than worthy of such recognition. Harmonia Mundi releases the CD globally on Sept. 13, but the choir’s hometown gets a two-week jump on the rest of the world via a launch party Monday, Aug. 29, 5pm, at Waterloo Records (600-A N. Lamar). You can have Conspirare Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson autograph your copy and hear him accompany soloist Charles Wesley Evans in a brief performance. For more information and a few sample clips from the new recording, visit www.conspirare.org.
This article appears in August 26 • 2011.