Contentment and Love Over Fear and Loathing

Contentment and Love Over Fear and Loathing

There’s a moment inside Craig Hella Johnson’s brilliant and gripping oratorio Considering Matthew Shepard that damn near brought me to tears — because I would, I think, eventually ask the same question in the same space and circumstance. It’s a question that haunts the score. “Am I like you?” It’s midway through the 100-minute piece, performed June 28 at the Hult Center as part of the Oregon Bach Festival. Matthew Shepard, on Oct. 6, 1998, had b…