What knits us
to the soul of another
the way dusk light becomes
a part of darkness returning
This question dominates a good portion of our album,
BORN: music of Edie Hill and Michael Gilbertson,
winner of the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance
(and our third Grammy, announced yesterday
at the 65th annual Grammy Awards in LA!).
That’s a humbling sentence to read.
Three.
In seven years of nominations.
(And, we keep good company: congrats to fellow nominees Yannick Nézet-Séguin, The Met Orchestra and Chorus, John Eliot Gardiner, The Monteverdi Choir!)
What connects to a life
more than our own?
It’s not about the win, the statue, all the many congratulatory notes.
(Yow! thank you for those!)
It’s about listening.
All the people who will listen to the music of Edie Hill and Michael Gilbertson
because The Recording Academy recommends they do that!
(A reminder that you can stream BORN on Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal
and purchase a physical CD here.)
We want to make pieces about the world we live in, and we want people to hear them – to listen, and maybe recognize themselves in our stories. This Grammy brings all that together: relevance and relationships.
So, we are truly grateful
and we have many, many people to thank.
The composers, our board and staff, the producing team, the authors, our engineer, our label, our album art creator, our management, our home audience that supports our crazy ideas, our friends who host singers in their homes, and everyone who listens to our music.
Above all, we thank those making the music:
The singers of The Crossing.
The Alpha and Omega of The Crossing.
What we do. Why we exist.
From Navona Records: “Contemporary music needn’t sacrifice order and aesthetic appeal, even when it deals with complex issues. A glowing example of this is Born: Music of Edie Hill & Michael Gilbertson, with conductor Donald Nally leading The Crossing on a breathtakingly beautiful expedition into themes of extinctions, relationships and their complexities, loss, and love. Throughout this splendid amalgamation of Hill’s and Gilbertson’s ethereal, energetic, raw, and impactful compositions, the nuance of Nally’s conducting, and The Crossing’s superb expressiveness are ever-present. Singing that is transcendent and authentic.”
THE CROSSING
Katy Avery • Nathaniel Barnett • Karen Blanchard • Steven Bradshaw • Colin Dill • Micah Dingler • Joanna Gates • Dimitri German • Dominic German • Steven Hyder • Michael Jones • Lauren Kelly • Anika Kildegaard • Heidi Kurtz • Chelsea Lyons • Maren Montalbano • Rebecca Myers • James Reese • Daniel Schwartz • Rebecca Siler • Tiana Sorenson • Daniel Spratlan • Elisa Sutherland • Daniel Taylor
Donald Nally Conductor
Kevin Vondrak Assistant Conductor
John Grecia and Mark Livshits Keyboards
Born: music of Edie Hill and Michael Gilbertson was recorded
August 21-24, 2021 at St. Peter’s Church in the Great Valley,
Malvern PA
Recording Producers Paul Vazquez, Donald Nally, and Kevin Vondrak
Recording Engineer Paul Vazquez
Assistant Recording Engineers Dante Portella and Henry Koch
Editing, Mixing, and Mastering Paul Vazquez
Production Assistants Antonio Ruiz-Nokes and Ben Perri
The recording of Born: music of Edie Hill and Michael Gilbertson is made possible through the generous support of Carol Westfall, longtime friend and benefactor of The Crossing.
Artwork by Christopher St. John (2019) – “Bird with the Sound of a Warmer Climate,” “Songs for Passenger Pigeons.”