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 140 commissioned premieres address social, environmental, and political issues. With a commitment to recording its commissions, The Crossing has issued 28 releases, receiving two Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019), and seven 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

Spring 2023 Tour

Available: February 21 - March 5, 2023
New works from Caroline Shaw, Shara Nova, Jennifer Higdon, and more.

Dogma or Doctrine

Available: September 19-23, 2023 & February 1-10, 2024
Ayanna Woods - New Work TBA
Wang Lu - At Which Point
Tania León - Dogma or Doctrine 'To Number our Days'

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.

Winter 2024 Tour

Available: January 23 - February 10, 2024
Shara Nova - Titration
Ayanna Woods - SHIFT
David Lang - stateless
Caroline Shaw - Her beacon hand beckons
Nicholas Cline - she took his hand
Robert Maggio - Democracy

Farming

Farming, a stirring new work by Ted Hearne 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, among other sources. Scored for 24 vocalists with guitars, percussion and electronics, Farming, in development for four years, promises to be a major event—immediate and virtuosic, with Ted’s stylistic eclecticism, driving rhythms, and explosive energy ... next to a tended field.

Vespers of the Blessed Earth

Lying at the center of John Luther Adams' Vespers of the Blessed Earth are the “Litanies of the Sixth Extinction,” a sung list of several hundred endangered and vanished living things—a response to the previous movement, a “Brief Descent into Deep Time,” which reminds us that our species occupies a nearly unnoticeable blip in the awesome, wondrous time/space expansion of which we are a part. Vespers of the Blessed Earth is commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra for The Crossing and The Philadelphia Orchestra.

David Lang: poor hymnal

Composer David Lang is a big fan of hymn books. With poor hymnal , Lang explores the hymns of a community and what they may, or may not, reflect.

unEarth

Following Julia Wolf's truly remarkable Fire in my mouth, written for the New York Philharmonic and the women of The Crossing in 2018, Wolf has been commissioned to write a new work for the orchestra and the men of The Crossing. unEarth addresses human impact on our planet, and was commissioned by The New York Philharmonic for The Crossing and The New York Philharmonic.

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.

A Native Hill

A Native Hill is Gavin Bryars’ most substantial work for unaccompanied choir. A concert-length musical essay based on early writings of American author and activist Wendell Berry; what may at first seem pastoral contains a powerful contemporary relevance — a metaphysical and even political force.

Fire in My Mouth

Julia Wolfe's oratorio for 36 women voices and orchestra was commissioned by The New York Philharmonic and premieres in January 2019 with Jaap van Zweden conducting. The immersive and visual work explores the devastating Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 in New York that killed 146 young immigrant workers.

I Enter the Earth

Are we called today to pacifism or activism? What do we protect, the integrity of capitalism or the health of the community? The program features two works written for The Crossing, Joel Puckett’s dizzying, entrancing I enter the earth and James Primosch's Housekeeping , an exploration of the balancing effect of desire and longing on our lives on words of Marilynne Robinson.