The Crossing Presents Shara Nova's Titration This Saturday, August 13

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Leah Rankin | Morahan Arts and Media
leah@morahanartsandmedia.com | 646-378-9386

THE CROSSING PRESENTS SHARA NOVA’S TITRATION THIS SATURDAY, AUGUST 13

Philadelphia Premiere Performance Includes Pre-Concert Talk with Donald Nally and Shara Nova,
Plus Post-Concert Picnic

www.crossingchoir.org

Philadelphia, PA (August 10, 2022) — Grammy Award-winning choir The Crossing gives the Philadelphia premiere performance of Shara Nova’s TITRATION at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill this Saturday, August 13, 2022 at 4:00pm. The new work delves into feelings of joy, rage, and determination, told through songs by singer-songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Shara Nova—the composer of one of The Crossing’s acclaimed Carols after a Plague, also known for her work as My Brightest Diamond.

Shara writes of her new work, “Titration is an hour long choral song cycle which examines difficult emotions like fear, sorrow, disgust or rage through the lens of the nervous system and utilizes body-centered practices that develop one’s capacity to calm oneself when such emotions arise. In these times of conflict and crisis, how can we feel more, rather than less?

This music is greatly influenced by the Somatic Abolitionist body of work and practices of Resmaa Menakem. Additional influence for this work comes from polyvagal theory author Deb Dana, Somatic Experiencing therapy, Alexander Technique, as well as practices learned from Qi-gong teacher Master Chunyi Lin and Laughter Yoga.”

Audience members are invited to a pre-concert discussion with conductor, Donald Nally, and composer, Shara Nova, in the Burleigh Cruikshank Memorial Chapel at 3:00pm, followed by and a post-concert picnic in celebration of the choir’s first concert in their home city in August.

Performance Details
TITRATION
The Crossing
Donald Nally, conductor
Saturday, August 13, 2022 at 4:00pm
(pre-concert talk with Shara Nova at 3:00pm;
post-concert picnic at 5:00pm)
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill | 8855 Germantown Ave. | Philadelphia, PA
Tickets: $20 to $35
Ticket Link: https://thecrossing.ticketleap.com/titration/

Please note: proof of vaccination is required to attend, and vaccine cards will be checked prior to entry into the concert. In accordance with city and PCCH guidelines, masks are optional, but encouraged.

Program:
Shara Nova - TITRATION

TITRATION
1. Freeze State
2. Safety in Peril or Calm
3. What’s The Vibe, Vagus?
4. Titration 1
5. How do I keep on feelin’ in this mean, mean world?
6. Emotion Wheel
7. Patterns of Protection
8. The Grief of Which I Rarely Speak
9. Titration 2
10. Turn Ya Head Around
11. Imagine A Favorite Place
12. I Seek To Change
13. Yes / No
14. I’m so Mad I Could Spit Nails
15. Notice Sensations
16. Pulses
17. Titration 3

TITRATION is commissioned by The Crossing - Donald Nally, conductor, the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Montana, & Conspirare - Craig Hella Johnson, conductor; with support from Anne and Dennis Wentz and the Joel Brauer Fund for New Music.

About The Crossing
The Crossing is a Grammy Award-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.

The Crossing collaborates with some of the world’s most accomplished ensembles and artists, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, Network for New Music, Lyric Fest, Piffaro, Beth Morrison Projects, Allora & Calzadilla, Bang on a Can, Klockriketeatern, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. Similarly, The Crossing often collaborates with some of world’s most prestigious venues and presenters, such as the Park Avenue Armory, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts 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, Haarlem Choral Biennale in The Netherlands, The Finnish National Opera in Helsinki, The Kennedy Center in Washington, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space in New York, Winter Garden with WNYC, and Duke, Northwestern, Colgate, and Notre Dame Universities. The Crossing holds an annual residency at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Montana.

With a commitment to recording its commissions, The Crossing has issued 24 releases, receiving two GRAMMY® Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019), and seven Grammy nominations. The Crossing, with Donald Nally, was the American Composers Forum’s 2017 Champion of New Music. They were the recipients of the 2015 Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, three ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, and the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award from Chorus America.

Recently, 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 and Steven Bradshaw, and composers David Lang, Michael Gordon, and Paul Fowler on live and animated versions of new and existing works. Lang’s protect yourself from infection and in nature as well as Paul Fowler’s Obligations, based on a poem of Layli Long Soldier, were specifically created to be within the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Crossing’s pandemic response daily series, Rising w/ The Crossing, a series of 72 live performances with notes by Nally, has been archived by the Library of Congress as “an important part of the collection and the historical record.”

The Crossing is represented by Alliance Artist Management. All of its concerts are broadcast on WRTI, Philadelphia’s Classical and Jazz public radio station. Learn more at www.crossingchoir.org.

About Shara Nova
Born in "The Diamond state" of Arkansas to a family of musical traveling evangelists, Shara Nova (formerly Worden) moved across America throughout her youth, then went on to study classical voice at The University of North Texas. After moving to New York City, she assembled her chamber pop band, My Brightest Diamond in 2001, subsequently releasing four albums on Asthmatic Kitty Records and in 2018 A Million And One, a dance pop tribute to Detroit where she currently lives. Nova has composed works for yMusic, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Cantus Domus, The Crossing, Nordic Voices, Young New Yorkers' Chorus, Brooklyn Rider, Nadia Sirota and Roomful of Teeth, among others. In 2019, she composed an "opera for a city" with director Mark DeChiazza and over 600 musicians along with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, entitled "Look Around."

Her orchestrations have been performed by the Aarhus Symfoni, North Carolina Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, American Composers Orchestra and the BBC Concert orchestra. Her baroque chamber p’opera “You Us We All” premiered in the US in October 2015 at BAM Next Wave Festival. She wrote and performed in a four-screen installation created with Helga Davis and Mark DeChiazza entitled “Ocean Body”, which was showcased by ProtoTYPE festival in January 2021, premiered at The Momentary in August and is showing at Wasserman Gallery in Detroit through December 2021. Her latest operatic work, a baroque masque entitled ``Infinite Movement” created in collaboration with visual artist Matthew Ritchie, premiered at The University of North Texas in November 2021 performed by double choir, double brass ensembles and featured soloists.

Many composers, songwriters and filmmakers have sought out Nova’s voice, including Sarah Kirkland Snider, David Lang, David Byrne, The Decemberists, Bryce Dessner, Steve Mackey, Sufjan Stevens, Matthew Ritchie, Laurie Anderson and Matthew Barney. Nova is a Kresge fellow, a Carolina Performing Arts Creative Futures fellow, a National Endowment for the Arts recipient, a Knights Grant recipient and a United States Artists fellow.

To see Shara in concert, see the latest updates on www.mybrightestdiamond.com

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