Craig Hella Johnson

Craig Hella Johnson has earned recognition chiefly as a choral conductor and composer who founded Conspirare and has directed multiple prominent ensembles while also working as an educator and award recipient.

Born June 15, 1962, in Crow Wing County, Minnesota, he trained in piano and voice at St. Olaf College and received his degree there in 1984. Additional studies took him to the Juilliard School, the University of Illinois, and Yale University, where he completed a doctorate. A National Arts Fellowship later supported his choral conducting work at the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart under Helmuth Rilling.

In 1991 Johnson established the choral ensemble Conspirare, originally called the New Texas Festival, and has remained its artistic director into the mid-2020s. The organization developed into a full-time professional choir, securing numerous awards and nominations under his direction. Its first recording, Through the Green Fuse, appeared in 2004. Six Grammy nominations followed, along with a win in 2015 for The Sacred Spirit of Russia. Conspirare gave the premiere of his oratorio Considering Matthew Shepherd in 2016.

Beyond Conspirare he directed choral music at the University of Texas from 1990 to 2001, served as artistic director of Chanticleer from 1998 to 1999, and acted as conductor and artistic director of the Victoria Bach Festival from 1992 to 2015, after which he became conductor emeritus. In 2013 he was appointed music director of the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, and in 2016 Texas State University named him resident artist in choral music. He has also appeared as a guest conductor with the Austin Symphony and San Antonio Symphony Orchestras, among others. His recordings have been issued on Harmonia Mundi and Clarion. The 2019 Delos album Hope of Living: Choral Music of Jake Runestad earned another Grammy nomination for Johnson and Conspirare. They released The Singing Guitar on Delos in 2020 in collaboration with several U.S. guitar quartets and followed it in 2023 with House of Belonging. In 2013 Johnson was designated Texas State Musician, becoming only the second classical musician to receive that honor.