“The reason we chose the cathedral, aside from the fact that it’s a great place to sing that we’ve never been to, is that Matthew’s remains are at the National Cathedral,” says Steven Smith, Berkshire Choral International’s president and chief executive. With no safe place to bury Shepard, the cathedral provided a private crypt and held an emotional service for him 20 years after his death. Shepard’s parents, Dennis and Judy Shepard, will attend the performance, and half the ticket proceeds will go to the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
‘Considering Matthew Shepard’ Comes to the Cathedral
July 10, 2025
The Washington Post offers a preview of tomorrow's "Considering Matthew Shepard," the first time the piece has been performed at the Cathedral since Matthew was interred here in 2018.
Matthew, as you’ll recall, was the young Wyoming college student who was viciously murdered in 1998 simply because he was gay. After a 20-year wait, his parents Dennis and Judy chose the Cathedral as his final resting place in 2018.
Matthew’s memorial has become a pilgrimage spot for the LGBTQ+ community, and we’re honored to host the musical piece here for the first time since his 2018 funeral. The Post offers a preview:
The oratorio, by composer Craig Hella Johnson, fuses a wide range of genres, including blues, jazz, gospel, show tunes and pop. It also features lines from poets, including Rumi and Hildegard of Bingen, and pulls from news reports of the murder and passages from Shepard’s personal journals.
One particular song has stuck with Smith. In a choked voice, he explains that “The Fence” achingly tells Matthew’s story through the perspective of the doe.
“When [police officers] approached the fence, they saw a doe sleeping next to him,” Smith says. The deer “saw his body there and decided to spend the night, to keep him company.”
The performance will be conducted by Jeffrey Benson, who says he felt honored to be invited to take a break from his full-time job as choral director at San José State University in California. In 1998, when Shepard was killed, Benson vividly remembers finding out about his death. He heard the news and was immediately struck; a year earlier, he had just come out. He and Shepard were almost the exact same age.
More than 230 singers applied to be part of the choir, and those chosen flew to D.C. a week early for what Smith describes as a “summer camp” to rehearse. The performance is packed with traditional chorus and orchestra pieces and intertwined with soloists who represent Shepard and his parents. But Smith wants to be clear: It’s not a documentary. It’s a complex piece that heightens the story and underscores the tragedy.