The Crossing

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 170 commissioned premieres address social, environmental, and political issues. With a commitment to recording its commissions, The Crossing has issued 36 releases, receiving four Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019, 2023, 2025), and ten Grammy nominations.

"For tonal blend, diction, and intonation, Nally has created a group that is virtually flawless and Lang, who has written several works for them over the years, understands how to draw out their best."

Boston Classical Review

"The Crossing’s clarity of sound and commitment to exquisite interpretation garner well-deserved accolades, but the real proof is in a live concert. It leaves one in awe of their musicianship and the new thresholds of musical experience that they so easily cross."

Seen and Heard International

"As led by Donald Nally, the ensemble is virtually unrivalled in adding new works to the choral repertoire and performing them to the artistic hilt."

Gramophone

"America's most astonishing choir ... The Crossing, led by Donald Nally, combines an embrace of the new, a social conscience and fearless technique."

New York Times

"When the Crossing is singing under the baton of its visionary director, Donald Nally ... you’re left with this group’s amazing, immaculate sound, both ethereally light and almost tangibly present in the air."

New York Times

"The Crossing, the resourceful new-music chorus led by Donald Nally, imbues the music with both energy and awe."

San Francisco Chronicle

"It’s a pristine sound. But there’s also urgency in it; a sense of searching; always a reason behind the gorgeousness."

New York Times

"Against all odds, a choir focused on new music prospers."

Chicago Tribune

"... Lang and The Crossing have respectively broadened the philosophical perspectives of our overall musical landscape and will no doubt continue to do so into our troubled decade."

ArtsJournal

The Crossing’s Latest is an “Album to Listen to Now” at New York Times

January 12, 2026

The Crossing Garners 11th Grammy Nomination

November 12, 2025

Carnegie Hall’s 2025-26 Season Features Sō Percussion, Ruckus, The Crossing, and Jordi Savall

February 17, 2025

a thousand regrets: earth songs

Gabriela Ortiz - Tierra Parte I
Caroline Shaw - Ochre
Gavin Bryars - A Native Hill

The Crossing sings music written for them by three of the most distinguished composers of our time, each bringing a unique perspective on our relationship with the earth. In Tierra Parte I, Gabriela Ortiz employs driving dance rhythms and perpetually transmuting textures to capture the defiance of an “earth that refuses to be owned.” Caroline Shaw’s Ochre, for which The Crossing won its fourth Grammy in 2025, treads lightly upon that same earth in seven scenes pondering its origin, age, and how we live on it. In A Native Hill, Gavin Bryars sets Wendell Berry’s agrarian thoughts of a harmonious fusion of humans and nature in soaring, ethereal musical gestures of contemplation and gratitude.

what belongs to me?

Music of Gabriela Ortiz, Gabriel Jackson, Ayanna Woods, Shara Nova, and David Lang
This program presents a kind of “Shara Nova Quilt,” woven almost entirely of works written for The Crossing; music that reflects Nova's focus on making the world a better place through our actions and art. Movements of David Lang’s poor hymnal serve as bookends, with their calm ruminations on charity and kindness. Ayanna Woods’ Infinite Body, begins with a consideration of capitalism’s effects on our bodies, and develops into a glaring affirmation of love. And, Gabriela Ortiz’s raucous, exhilarating Tierra Parte 1, questions, with hope, the Earth’s ability to forgive us.

assembly of the poor hymnal

Composer David Lang
Staged production by Annie-B Parson (director/choreographer)
Concert Version also available
David Lang's poor hymnal performed in a staged production directed and choreographed by Annie-B Parson (American Utopia , Here Lies Love) brings an intimate communal experience to Lang's modern masterpiece. The Crossing also offers a concert version of the work, which has been performed at New York's Lincoln Center, Big Ears Festival, and major university performing arts centers since it's premiere in 2014. 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?

Sumptuous Planet: A Secular Mass

Composer David Shapiro
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.

Works with Orchestra

John Luther Adams - Vespers of the Blessed Earth
Gabriela Ortiz - Revolución diamantina
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.