Announcing Piedra de sol (Sunstone), featuring acclaimed composer Joby Talbot’s stunning choral setting of Mexican poet Octavio Paz’s epic masterpiece, performed by GRAMMY® Award-winning choir Conspirare and Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson. Releasing on digital and CD on August 21, 2026 on Divine Art Records.
Drawing on the symbolism of the Aztec calendar stone, Octavio Paz’s poem Piedra de sol (1957) is like no other. It uses techniques of modern poetry, particularly surrealist imagery, to meditate on cyclical time and the possibility of breaking its grip through poetry and love, as explained by Adela Pineda Franco of the University of Texas at Austin in her excellent booklet article.
The poem had a profound emotional impact on Joby Talbot:
“…the hugeness of the poet’s vision; the cosmic immensity of the imagery; the febrile surrealistic intensity of a sensory journey through space and time from reality to fantasy and back again; the sudden moments of heartfelt intimacy that never fail to surprise…”
The seventy-minute-long musical structure mirrors the poem’s narrative journey from ecstatic vision, through deep despair, to eventual enlightenment. It features a wide range of vocal textures, extended passages of complex rhythmic interplay, exposed solo passages for a single voice, and episodes where slabs of sound colour reflect the poem’s vivid imagery. Coloring much of the music is the marimba (superbly played by Thomas Burritt), which anchors the harmonies and rhythm and contributes to the otherworldly character of the musical palette. Piedra de sol invites listeners and performers alike on a journey of infinite dimensions – a voyage whose course bends, advances, recedes, comes full circle, and arrives forever.
London-born Joby Talbot is a leading composer for concert, stage, and screen. He has written widely for voice and choir, setting poetry, sacred, and historical texts for varying ensembles. Prominent within Talbot’s catalogue are his works for stage and screen. His operas Everest (2014) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2020) both explore themes of despair and endurance, while his collaboration with leading choreographer Christopher Wheeldon has produced original full-length narrative ballet adaptations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (2010), The Winter’s Tale (2013), Like Water for Chocolate (2021), and the life of Oscar Wilde (Oscar, 2024). Talbot has also scored major feature films The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Sing (2016), Sing 2 (2021), and Wonka (2023).
Conspirare is a professional choral organization under the leadership of Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson. Inspired by the power of music to change lives, this ensemble engages singers from around the world who join voices to deliver world-class, extraordinary live musical experiences and recordings. Their discography includes 17 commercial albums and 20 self-produced live albums. Hella Johnson and Conspirare were awarded a 2015 GRAMMY® for Best Choral Performance for The Sacred Spirit of Russia, and their recordings have received 12 total nominations, including for advena: liturgies for a broken world: music of Mark Buller, released in 2025 on Divine Art. Conspirare has performed throughout the United States and internationally. On this recording, the choir includes tenor Haitham Haidar (whose recently released debut album Zaytoun on Athene was nominated for a JUNO Award), Savannah Porter of Voces8, early music specialists Jonathan Woody and Dann Coakwell, and the incredible Basso Profundo Glenn Miller.
Conspirare gratefully acknowledges the Tejemos Foundation, Lynne Dobson and Greg Wooldridge, for their vital support of this recording. This project is also supported by the Joel Brauer Fund for New Music and Mary & Phil Delk and the BBC Singers who underwrote Joby Talbot’s commission.
We thank the following individuals and organizations for their additional generous support of Conspirare: H-E-B, Nancy Wilson Scanlan, members of Hella Circle, members of Hella’s Angels, Shield-Ayres Foundation, Still Water Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts, St. Martin’s Lutheran Church, Conspirare Board and Staff , Randy Adair, Nancy & Randy Baden, Roslyn & Sean Breen, Marvin J. Brittman, Robert L. Brueck, Stephanie & Carla Burzyk-Smith, Dixie Camp, Fran & Larry Collmann, Paula D’Arcy, Nina & Jeff rey Di Leo, Susanna & Richard Finnell, William G. Fivecoat, Elena Goyanes, Lara & Robert Harlan, Sheri Clark Henriksen, Howry, Breen & Herman LLP, Trish & Robert J. Karli, Gail & Jeff Kodosky, Kathy & Henry Leighton, Lee Manford & Casey Blass, Joey Martin, Rebecca & Art Miller, Philip Overbaugh & Craig Hella Johnson, DeeAnne & Steven Paulson, Tina & Dale Knobel, Gayle Glass Roche, Carol Williams, Anonymous, Two Anonymous Foundations, and every co-creator who believes in the power of music to heal and connect us. This project is funded in part by an Elevate Grant from the City of Austin.
Also by Conspirare
2026 GRAMMY® Award Nominee
Best Choral Performance
–Donald Rosenberg, Gramophone
“Mark Buller ponders a host of moral issues in these works performed by the sterling choral ensemble Conspirare. Conspirare, led by founding Artistic Director Craig Hella Johnson, respond to all of Buller’s emotional gestures with utmost cohesion and flexibility, and the soloists – basses Michael Hawes and Simon Barrad and soprano Emily Yocum Black – are first-rate.”