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 160 commissioned premieres address social, environmental, and political issues. With a commitment to recording its commissions, The Crossing has issued 30 releases, receiving three Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019, 2023), and eight Grammy nominations.
ACCLAIM / TESTIMONIALS
DISCOGRAPHY

Titration

Released: April 28, 2023
Label: Navona Records
Composer: Shara Nova

Carols after a Plague

Released: December 9, 2022
Label: New Focus Recordings
Composers: Shara Nova, Tyshawn Sorey, Edith Canat de Chizy, Joseph C. Phillips, Jr., LJ White, Samantha Fernando, Leila Adu-Gilmore, Nina Shekhar, Vanessa Lann, Mary Jane Leach, Alex Berko, Viet Cuong

Telekinesis

Released: November 11, 2022
Label: New Amsterdam & Nonesuch Records
Composer: Tyondai Braxton

Sila: The Breath of the World

Released: September 23, 2022
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composers: John Luther Adams

Born

Released: June 28, 2022
Label: Navona Records
Composers: Michael Gilbertson, Edie Hill

A Native Hill

Released: April 9, 2021
Label: Navona Records
Composer: Gavin Bryars

The Tower and the Garden

Released: February 12, 2021
Label: Navona Records
Composers: Toivo Tulev, Gregory Spears, Joel Puckett

Rising w/ The Crossing

Released: December 11, 2020
Label: New Focus Recordings
Composers: David Lang, Joby Talbot, Eriks Ešenvalds, Dieterich Buxtehude, Paul Fowler, Alex Berko, Ted Hearne, Santa Ratniece

Carthage

Released: May 22, 2020
Label: Navona Records
Composer: James Primosch

Anonymous Man

Released: March 20, 2020
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composer: Michael Gordon

Fire in My Mouth

Released: August 30, 2019
Label: Decca
Composer: Julia Wolfe

Voyages

Released: August 23, 2019
Label: Innova Recordings
Composer: Robert Convery, Benjamin Boyle

The Arc in the Sky

Released: July 12, 2019
Label: Navona Records
Composer: Kile Smith

Evolutionary Spirits

Released: June 28, 2019
Label: Navona Records
Composers: Edie Hill, Gregory W. Brown, James Shrader, Bruce Babcock, Jonathan Sheffer, Christopher J. Hoh

Zealot Canticles

Released: September 28, 2018
Label: Innova Recordings
Composer: Lansing McLoskey

If There Were Water

Released: February 23, 2018
Label: Innova Recordings
Composers: Stratis Minakakais, Gregory W. Brown

Canticles of the Holy Wind

Released: May 12, 2017
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composer: John Luther Adams

Sound from the Bench

Released: March 24, 2017
Label: Cantaloupe Music
Composer: Ted Hearne

Seven Responses

Released: December 14, 2016
Label: Innova Recordings
Composer: Santa Ratniece, Hans Thomalla, Caroline Shaw, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, David T. Little, Ursula Andkjær Olsen, Paul Kane

The Fifth Century

Released: November 18, 2016
Label: ECM New Series
Composer: Gavin Bryars

NEWS / PRESS
GALLERY / IMAGES
PROGRAMS / PROJECTS

Titration

Available: February 3-16, 2025 or by special arrangement

Shara Nova - Titration
Ayanna Woods - SHIFT
David Lang - stateless
Caroline Shaw - Her beacon hand beckons
Nicholas Cline - she took his hand
Robert Maggio - Democracy

Crickets In Our Backyard

Available: February 3-16, 2025 or by special arrangement

Ayanna Woods - Infinite Decay
Wang Lu - At Which Point
Tania León Singsong

U.S. Poet Laureate and 1987 Pulitzer winner Rita Dove has been describing our world in language that pulls back the curtain on how we love and gives breathtaking testimony to violence. Her words are set to music by 2021 Pulitzer winner Tania Leòn in a new work for MacArthur Fellow Claire Chase and The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally.

Farming

Ted Hearne's Farming, written for The Crossing, grapples with the impact of settler colonialism on current labor practices from tech to agriculture. Texts are drawn from William Penn and Jeff Bezos, UberEats ads, H2A visa searches, and more. Scored for 24 vocalists with guitars, percussion and electronics, Farming is a major event—immediate and virtuosic, with Ted’s stylistic eclecticism, driving rhythms, and explosive energy. "precise and luminion...the sweetest, saddest song." (New York Times)

Works with Orchestra

John Luther Adams - Vespers of the Blessed Earth
Julia Wolfe - Fire In My Mouth
Julia Wolfe - Unearth

These works are for The Crossing with orchestra. Both Adams' Vespers and Wolfe's Unearth are centered around environmental issues and questions, with the New York Times calling the latter a "a sonic commentary on the wonders of biodiversity." Wolfe's Fire In My Mouth explores the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 in NYC.

poor hymnal

In poor hymnal, a concert-length work written for The Crossing, David Lang considers the words of hymnals, which are woven into many varying religions as a catalog of ideals that worshipers agree upon; ideals such as how we treat and care for others, particularly those who are less fortunate. In poor hymnal, Lang poses the question: are the hymns we’re singing today truly reflective of a society that feels a responsibility to care for and support one another?

SIN-EATER

A ritual grotesquerie for choir and string quartet, SIN-EATER is a work of ritual music-theatre exploring the nature of power in western civilization through its connection to eating and food. Staged and costumed, this nearly-90 minute work is a contemporary oratorio for one character: The Crossing, asking tough questions in sumptuous music.

Carols After a Plague

The Crossing presents an ambitious new commissioning project featuring premieres from 12 composers new to the group: Leila Adu, Ambrose Akinmusire, Alex Berko, Edith Canat de Chizy, Samantha Fernando, Mary Jane Leach, Shara Nova, Joseph C. Phillips Jr., Nina Shekhar, Tyshawn Sorey, Eric Whitacre, LJ White.

Sumptuous Planet: A Secular Mass

Sumptuous Planet is an unaccompanied. concert-length expression of belief about the nature of life, and the joy we can find in understanding it, told through Richard Dawkins’ decidedly secular world view, paradoxically organized by composer David Shapiro in the shape of a Christian Mass. Sumptuous Planet captures the famed biologist’s thoughts on the magnificence and staggering beauty of nature, as well as its utter indifference to our presence here.