UW plans Shepard 20th anniversary commemorations

“We are an institution that upholds the values of inclusion and diversity,” Nichols said. “Diversity makes a university more excellent.”

In what UW Director of Choir Activities Nicole Lamartine called the “flagship event” of the commemoration, Laramie High School’s theater will host 100-minute oratorio “Considering Matthew Shepard,” performed by Texas-based choral group Conspirare and written by Craig Hella Johnson, who created the work after visiting Laramie.

The work will be performed Oct. 6 — the day Shepard was abducted. General admission tickets are free and are now available through the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts box office or by calling 766-6666.

“My journey with ‘Considering Matthew Shepard’ began, unbeknownst to me, in 2005 when I auditioned to sing in Conspirare, and I sang with them for about four years,” Lamartine said.

Lamartine brought Johnson to Wyoming in 2012 to work with the university’s choirs. During that trip, Johnson visited the fence where Shepard was found beaten in 1998.

“I think that was the moment that he actually started to write the music that had been percolating in his soul,” Lamartine said. “He was deeply moved by this tragedy.”

Since the work premiered in 2016, Lamartine said she and members of Conspirare have hoped to bring a performance to Laramie on the 20th anniversary of Shepard’s death.

“The concert itself is a beautiful tapestry of musical styles,” Lamartine said. “The singers in the group take on the roles in this tragic story. A singer becomes the fence, cradling Matt through the night. A singer becomes the deer, comforting Matt like a mother’s presence through the day. And singers become the protestors at Matt’s funeral. … By being open to hearing the story, we can continue on our pathway to establish a stronger community rooted in acceptance, compassion for all humans, and hope for a future where it don’t matter who we love, but more importantly, how we love.”

Lamartine also plans to produce a Oct. 4 interdisciplinary work entitled “ANGELS,” which will include poetry, prose and choral music, all while including those who Lamartine described as real “angels” — people who witnessed and played a positive role in events surrounding Shepard’s death.

The work intends to contemplate “the idea of protection and how we are comforted by these larger forces around us,” Lamartine said.

Other commemorative events include a proclamation by the Laramie City Council, film screenings, a WyomingPBS special detailing eyewitness accounts of the case and other events in September and October.

The city plans to install banners throughout the city and host a meeting to talk about the non-discrimination ordinance and other LGBTQ work.

Laramie Mayor Andi Summerville came to Laramie as a 17-year-old college student in 1999, the year after Shepard’s death. Summerville said her early experiences in the city were strongly shaped by the murder and she’s been “trying to bring that experience of what I witnessed as a college student into a leadership position as mayor.”

Summerville said she’s been glad to witness LGBTQ organizations develop a more prominent role in Laramie since Shepard’s death.

Annual events, like President Laurie Nichols’s September LGBTQ reception and the October candlelight vigil, will continue as usual this fall.

Shepard was an openly gay UW student when he was beaten to death at age 21 in 1998. The nation’s first hate crime legislation was later named after the man.