The Crossing
Musical America’s 2024 Ensemble of the Year, The Crossing is a Grammy-winning professional chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally and dedicated to new music. It is committed to working with creative teams to make and record new, substantial works for choir that explore and expand ways of writing for choir, singing in choir, and listening to music for choir.
Many of its nearly 190 commissioned premieres address social, environmental, and political issues. With a commitment to recording its commissions, The Crossing has issued 34 releases, receiving three Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019, 2023), and nine Grammy nominations.
Collaborating
The Crossing collaborates with some of the world’s most accomplished ensembles and artists, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Network for New Music, Lyric Fest, Piffaro, Tempesta di Mare Baroque Chamber Orchestra, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Toshimaru Nakamura, Beth Morrison Projects, Dolce Suono, Allora & Calzadilla, Pig Iron Theatre Company, The Rolling Stones, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, with whom they have appeared at Miller Theatre of Columbia University in the American premiere of James Dillon’s Nine Rivers, Peak Performances at Montclair State University, The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Bang on a Can’s first Philadelphia Marathon featured The Crossing.
Similarly, The Crossing often collaborates with some of world’s most prestigious venues and presenters, including the Park Avenue Armory, Annenberg Center at the University of Pennsylvania, National Sawdust, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, The Kennedy Center in Washington, The National Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Delaware Museum of Art, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space in New York, and Winter Garden with WNYC. They have been in residence, with concerts, at Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, Duke, Northwestern, Colgate, Rice, and Notre Dame Universities. The Crossing appears frequently in New York, beginning in 2011 with performances at Miller Theater and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since then, highlights have included the 2014 premiere of John Luther Adams’ Sila: the breath of the world at Lincoln Center with JACK Quartet and eighth blackbird; JLA’s Vespers of the Blessed Earth at Carnegie Hall in 2023 (commissioned by the Philadelphia Orchestra for The Crossing); Julia Wolfe’s two New York stories at Geffen Hall, UnEarth (2023) and Fire in My Mouth (2019) (both commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for The Crossing).
The Crossing has appeared twice in Helsinki, at the Finnish National Opera and at Temppeliaukion, and in Stockholm at Berwaldhallen as a part of the Baltic Sea Festival, performing Robert Maggio’s Aniara in collaboration with Klockriketeatern. They have appeared a number of times in The Netherlands: Aniara at the Haarlem Choral Biennale, Ted Hearne’s Farming at the Big Sing, and Shara Nova’s Titration at the Musiekgebouw in Amsterdam.
In addition to these concert-length staged works. The Crossing has expanded its choral presentation to film, working with Four/Ten Media, in-house sound designer Paul Vazquez of Digital Mission Audio Services, visual artists Brett Snodgrass, Eric Southern, and Steven Bradshaw, and composers David Lang and Michael Gordon on live and animated versions of new and existing works. Lang’s "protect yourself from infection" received national recognition, featured on NPR's Performance Today and in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and in The Los Angeles Times. His "in nature" was specifically designed to continue The Crossing's longtime residency at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Montana in the Summer of 2020.
Inspiring
The Crossing has presented nearly 180 commissioned world premieres. Major commissioned premieres include David Lang’s poor hymnal (2023), in nature (2020) and statement to the court (2010); David T. Little’s Sin-Eater (2o23); Tania León’s Singsong (2023); Edie Hill’s Spectral Spirits (2019); George Lewis’ A Cluster of Instincts (2022); Michael Gordon’s Anonymous Man (2017); Ayanna Woods SHIFT (2021) and Infinite Body (2023); Michael Gilbertson’s Born (2017); Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Ad genua (2016); Lansing McLoskey’s Zealot Canticles (2017); Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands (2016) and Ochre (2023, co-commissioned with Cantori New York and Volti); John Luther Adams’ Canticles of the Holy Wind (2013, co-commissioned with Kamer); Gavin Bryars’ A Native Hill (2018/19) and The Fifth Century (2014, written for The Crossing and PRISM); Stratis Minakakis’ Crossings Cycle (2015/2017); Benjamin C.S. Boyle’s Voyages (2018); Gregory Spears’ The Tower and the Garden (2018); Gregory Brown’s un/bodying/s (2017); Lewis Spratlan’s Hesperus is Phosphorus (2012, co-commissioned with Network for New Music); Ted Hearne’s Farming (2023), Sound From the Bench (2014, Pulitzer finalist, co-commissioned with Volti), and Animals (2018, co-commissioned with the Park Avenue Armory); and Kile Smith’s The Arc in the Sky (2018); The Consolation of Apollo (2014), The Waking Sun (2011), and Vespers (2008, a commission of Piffaro). In 2019, the women of The Crossing collaborated with The New York Philharmonic on the world premiere of Julia Wolfe’s Fire in My Mouth; the men of The Crossing sang the world premiere of Julia’s UnEarth in 2023; both works were commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for The Crossing.
The Crossing has been fortunate to receive major funding from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage which has supported its largest projects: Aniara: fragments of time and space by Robert Maggio (2019), a collaboration with Klockriketeatern in Helsinki; Ted Hearne’s Farming (2023), presented at Kings Oaks Farm in Buck County and again at The Big Sing in Haarlem The Netherlands, and Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts; Seven Responses (2016) with new works from Caroline Shaw, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, David T. Little, Hans Thomalla, Lewis Spratlan, Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen, and Santa Ratniece; The Gulf (between you and me) (2011); and Seneca Sounds (2010). The Center also supported The Month of Moderns 2009, The Crossing’s annual Summer Festival of new choral works presented over a number of concerts in June.
The Month of Moderns 2016 featured The Crossing’s Jeff Quartets, a rare compilation of quartets from fifteen of the world’s leading composers, presented as a concert-length set and collected in an omnibus edition. It is a memorial to The Crossing’s co-founder, Jeffrey Dinsmore, who died in April 2014.
Recording
With a commitment to recording its commissions, The Crossing has issued thirty-four releases, receiving three Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019, 2023), and nine Grammy nominations.
Their recording Born: music of Edie Hill and Michael Gilbertson (Navona, 2022) was the winner of the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. The Crossing’s collaboration with PRISM, Gavin Bryars’ The Fifth Century (ECM, 2016), was the winner of the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance, and named one of The Chicago Tribune’s Top 10 Classical CDs of the 2016. Their recording of Lansing McLoskey’s Zealot Canticles (Innova, 2018) was awarded the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance. Their Grammy nominated album, Rising w/ The Crossing (New Focus, 2020), featured Ēriks Ešenvalds’ Earth Teach me Quiet, named one of the 25 Best Classical Music Tracks of 2020 by The New York Times.
In the last fifteen years, they have produced recordings covering a wide range of styles: David Shapiro’s Sumptuous Planet (Navona, 2023); Shara Nova’s Titration (Navona, 2023); Carols after a Plague (New Focus, 2022), featuring twelve composers’ works; Born (Navona, 2022); Gavin Bryars’ A Native Hill (Navona, 2021); The Tower and the Garden (Navona, 2021), featuring works by Gregory Spears, Joel Puckett, and Toivo Tulev; Michael Gordon’s Anonymous Man (Cantaloupe, 2020); Carthage, music of James Primosch (Navona, 2020); Voyages, featuring two works by Benjamin C.S. Boyle and Robert Convery on the same words of Hart Crane (Navona, 2019); Kile Smith’s The Arc in the Sky (Navona, 2019); Evolutionary Spirits, music of Edie Hill, Jonathan Sheffer, Christopher Hoh, Bruce Babcock (Navona, 2019); If There Were Water (Innova, 2018), featuring works by Gregory W. Brown and Stratis Minakakis; Clay Jug: music of Edie Hill (Navona, 2017); Ted Hearne’s Sound from the Bench (Cantaloupe, 2017); the two-disk Seven Responses (Innova, 2017); John Luther Adams’ Canticles of the Holy Wind (Cantaloupe, 2017); Words Adorned: Andalusian Poetry and Music (Al-Bustan, 2015, re-released on Navona, 2021, music of Kareem Roustom and Kinan Abou-Afach, with Dalal Abu Amneh and Al-Bustan Takht Ensemble); Lewis Spratlan’s Vespers Cantata: Hesperus is Phosphorus (Innova, 2015, with Network for New Music); Moonstrung Air, choral music of Gregory Brown (Navona, 2015); Christmas Daybreak (Innova, 2011, with world premiere recordings of James MacMillan and Gabriel Jackson); I want to live (Innova, 2011, with the complete to-date choral works for women by David Lang); and It is Time (Navona, 2008, featuring music commissioned for our first Month of Moderns). The Crossing’s first recording was a collaboration with Piffaro, The Renaissance Band: Kile Smith’s Vespers (Navona, 2009).
The Crossing is also featured on a number of collaborative albums, including The New York Philharmonic’s recording of Julia Wolfe’s Fire in My Mouth (Decca, 2019, nominated for the 2019 Grammy as Best Contemporary Classical Composition); John Luther Adams’ Sila: the breath of the world (Cantaloupe, 2022, nominated for the 2022 Grammy as Best Orchestral Performance); and Metropolis Ensemble’s recording of Tyondai Braxton’s Telekinesis (Nonesuch, 2023).
The Crossing’s recordings have been reviewed by The New York Times, The New Yorker, Opera News, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Gramophone, Fanfare, The Chicago Tribune, and many other journals.
Recognition
In October 2023, The Crossing was named Musical America’s Ensemble of the Year. The Crossing, with Donald Nally, was the American Composers Forums’ 2017 Champion of New Music. The Crossing’s 2014 commission Sound from The Bench by Ted Hearne was named a 2018 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. They were the recipient of the 2015 Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and have received three ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, as well as the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award (with composer Joel Puckett) from Chorus America.
Donald Nally was awarded the 2017 Michael Korn Award and the 2012 Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal for his work with The Crossing.
