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.

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.

Donald Nally
collaborates with creative artists, leading orchestras, and art museums to make new works for choir that address social and environmental issues. He has commissioned nearly 200 works and, with his ensemble The Crossing (Musical America’s 2024 Ensemble of the Year), has produced 33 recordings, winning three GRAMMY® Awards for Best Choral Performance, while nominated nine times.

Nally has held distinguished tenures as chorus master for Lyric Opera of Chicago, Welsh National Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and for many seasons at Il festival dei due mondi in Spoleto, Italy. He has prepared choruses for many internationally recognized conductors at the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra (London), American Composers Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Spoleto Festival Orchestra.

Nally has worked closely with the artists Allora & Calzadilla and composer David Lang on museum projects in London, Porto, Cordoba, Edmonton, Houston, Osaka, and Philadelphia. He has been visiting resident artist at the Park Avenue Armory and music director of The Mile Long Opera, Lang’s 1000-voice work on The High Line in Manhattan. His 72-chapter series Rising w/ The Crossing, a response to the 2020 pandemic, has been preserved by the National Archives of The Library of Congress as a cultural artifact.

Recent projects include the Swedish Radio Choir, Klockriketeatern at the Finnish National Opera, the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, the Big Ears Festival, the Haarlem KoorBiënnale, and various projects at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Donald is a frequent guest artist/teacher at universities, including Yale, Harvard, the University of Chicago, Indiana University, Notre Dame, Westminster Choir College, and Boston Conservatory.

Highlights of the 2024–2025 season include performances with The Crossing at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Drake University, McCarter Theater in Princeton, and Abendmusik in Lincoln; guest artist/teacher residencies at Boston University, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and the University of Iowa; and guest chorus master with the Chicago Symphony.

Nally is the John W. Beattie Chair of Music Emeritus at Northwestern University. He is Director of Choral Studies at Westminster Choir College of Rider University.