Matching Cell Formats Based On Matching Cell Values

I have a cell (A1) that contains text.
That text will match a single value in a reference list (i.e. range of cells e.g. Z1:Z26).
When the match occurs (e.g. A1 = Z16), I want the format of the reference cell (fill color, text color) to apply to the cell of interest (A1).
The reference cells are manually formatted.

I know that I could create a long list of conditional format formulas instead of using the reference, but it seems that there must be some way to tell excel: if the cell value contents are equivalent, the formatting should be as well.