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Press Releases
Grammy-Winning Choir The Crossing Presents 12 World Premieres in Carols after a Plague
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214
Penn Live Arts Contact: Katherine Blodgett | Communications Consulting
katherineblodgett@gmail.com | 215.431.1230
The Crossing @ Christmas:
Carols after a Plague
Featuring World Premieres by Leila Adu, Alex Berko,
Edith Canat de Chizy, Viet Cuong, Samantha Fernando,
Vanessa Lann, Mary Jane Leach, Shara Nova, Joseph C.
Phillips Jr., Nina Shekhar, Tyshawn Sorey, and LJ White
Sunday, December 12, 2021 at 3:00pm
Dekelboum Concert Hall | College Park, MD
Friday, December 17, 2021 at 7:00pm
Zellerbach Theatre, Annenberg Center | Philadelphia, PA
Sunday, December 19, 2021 at 5:00pm
Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill | Philadelphia, PA
“America’s most astonishing choir”
– The New York Times
PHILADELPHIA, PA (November 16, 2021) — Grammy Award-winning choir The Crossing, led by conductor Donald Nally, continues its 2021-2022 season with their annual Jeffrey Dinsmore Memorial Concerts, The Crossing @ Christmas. This year’s program is the culmination of a year-long focused project: Carols after a Plague, features an evening of world premieres by Leila Adu, Alex Berko, Edith Canat de Chizy, Viet Cuong, Samantha Fernando, Vanessa Lann, Mary Jane Leach, Shara Nova, Joseph C. Phillips Jr., Nina Shekhar, Tyshawn Sorey, and LJ White. The composers’ works all address the topic of plague – be it a pandemic, racism, climate change, gun violence, homelessness, diasporas, isolation, or loneliness – through their own idea of a carol, a brief choral work of joy or lament.
Carols after a Plague premieres Sunday, December 12, 2021 at 3:00pm at Dekelboum Concert Hall in College Park, MD presented by The Clarice Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland. The concert then travels to the Harold L. Zellerbach Theatre at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, PA on Friday, December 17, 2021 at 7:00pm presented by Penn Live Arts, and The Crossing’s home at The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill on Sunday, December 19, 2021 at 5:00pm. On December 19, there will be a pre-concert talk with many of the featured composers at 4:00pm in the Chapel, and after the performance, audience members can meet many of the composers at the post-concert reception in Widener Hall.
The Crossing asked twelve composers – twelve, representative of the divisions of the hour, the year, and the days of Christmas – to respond to the project title, leaving it to them to address what “Carols after a Plague” meant to them: an exercise in perspective, experience, and histories that are widely and at times wildly different. In return, The Crossing received twelve deeply personal, musical ruminations on our battered, resilient world. Not one of these carols is a carol in the traditional sense, yet all focus both singers and audience on a particular, relevant topic for a moment; the moments add up to a concert that, while incredibly unique, accomplishes what The Crossing attempts each December—an examination of who we are in the world, and how we treat each other.
Conductor Donald Nally explains, “These are our carols: of our time, dressing and addressing wounds, looking forward, bringing us together, reminding us of our own humanity – a goal that lies at the heart of this annual gathering. Not a Christmas-specific event at all, but rather, one of unanswered questions delivered through the filter of composers’ thoughts over a foundation of truth and grace. Maybe, someday, these carols will, like their more conventional predecessors, hold similar purpose in the lives of future generations: songs they will come together and sing to remind them of times past, stories in which their ancestors overcame challenges while they celebrated life and wondered at the mystery of its endings. Songs about community, enlightenment, and salvation, reached, not from a benevolent deity, but from ourselves.”
Program Information
The Crossing @ Christmas: Carols after a Plague
Sunday, December 12, 2021 at 3:00pm
Dekelboum Concert Hall | 8270 Alumni Dr | College Park, MD 20742
Presented by The Clarice Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland
Tickets: Pay What You Wish policy - Suggested price: $20 Regular, $10 Student
Link: https://www.crossingchoir.org/
Friday, December 17, 2021 at 7:00pm
Harold L. Zellerbach Theatre at the Annenberg Center | 3680 Walnut St | Philadelphia, PA 19104
Presented by Penn Live Arts
Tickets: $35
Link: https://www.crossingchoir.org/
Sunday, December 19, 2021 at 5:00pm
Pre-Concert Talk with the Composers in the Chapel at 4:00pm
Meet the Composers at the Post-Concert Reception in Widener Hall
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill | 8855 Germantown Ave | Philadelphia, PA 19118
Tickets: $35 General admission, $25 Senior, $20 Student
Link: https://www.crossingchoir.org/
Shara Nova – Carols after a Plague [World Premiere]
I. Urgency
II. Tone-policing
III. Resolve
Tyshawn Sorey – Requiem for a Plague [World Premiere]
Edith Canat de Chizy – Rising Stars [World Premiere]
Joseph C. Phillips, Jr. – The Undisappeared [World Premiere]
LJ White – a carol called love [World Premiere]
Samantha Fernando – Everything Passes, Everything is Connected [World Premiere]
Leila Adu – Colouring-In Book [World Premiere]
Nina Shekhar – y-mas [World Premiere]
Mary Jane Leach – Alone Together [World Premiere]
Alex Berko – Exodus [World Premiere]
Viet Cuong – Still So Much to Say [World Premiere]
Vanessa Lann – Shining Still [World Premiere]
Masks and proof of vaccination are required to attend Carols after a Plague at The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. Masks must be worn at all times while indoors and vaccination cards will be checked by front of house staff prior to entry into the Sanctuary. The choir will sing unmasked.
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 120 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 six 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 Penn Live Arts
Headquartered at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Penn Live Arts is the leading presenter of innovative and transformative performing arts experiences in Philadelphia, bringing world-class music, dance, theatre and film to an annual audience of over 80,000 on the University of Pennsylvania campus and at venues throughout the city. Penn Live Arts is an artistic crossroads joining Penn and the greater Philadelphia region. In reflection of Penn’s core values as a world-respected academic institution, Penn Live Arts emphasizes artistic and intellectual excellence and diversity in its offerings; prioritizes broad inclusiveness in the artists, audiences and groups it serves; manages outstanding performance, conference and meeting facilities; and boasts comprehensive event planning, production support and customer service. Penn Live Arts is a key asset for the University’s students and faculty, enhancing curriculum through connections with master artists, hosting student productions on professional stages, providing career development opportunities and being a true advocate for student performing arts. Penn Live Arts broadens arts access by actively engaging a wide range of school audiences and inclusive communities from campus, the West Philadelphia neighborhood and the surrounding region. Visit PennLiveArts.org.
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