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Jan. 27 - Feb. 6: The Crossing Announces East Coast Tour with Dublin Guitar Quartet, Performing Dessner, Glass, Shaw, Woods, and Muhly
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214
The Crossing Announces East Coast Tour
with Dublin Guitar Quartet
Program Features Nico Muhly’s How Little You Are
Plus Music by Caroline Shaw, Ayanna Woods,
Philip Glass, and Bryce Dessner
Jan. 27: University of Richmond | Richmond, VA
Jan. 28: Longwood Gardens | Kennett Square, PA
Jan. 30: Hamilton College | Clinton, NY
Feb. 1: Dartmouth College | Hanover, NH
Feb. 4: Bucknell University | Lewisburg, PA
Feb. 5: Lafayette College | Easton, PA
Feb. 6: Franklin and Marshall College | Lancaster, PA
“America’s most astonishing choir” – The New York Times
PHILADELPHIA, PA (December 15, 2021) — Grammy Award-winning choir The Crossing, led by conductor Donald Nally, embarks on an East Coast tour with the Dublin Guitar Quartet from January 27 to February 6, 2022.
The tour will include stops at venues in seven cities in the U.S. that include the University of Richmond in Richmond, VA on Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 7:30pm; Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA on Friday, January 28, 2022 at 8:00pm; Hamilton College in Clinton, NY on Sunday, January 30, 2022 at 3:00pm; Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH on Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 7:30pm; Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA on Friday, February 4, 2022 at 7:30pm; Lafayette College in Easton, PA on Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 8:00pm; and Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA on Sunday, February 6, 2022 at 3:00pm.
The program opens with the Dublin Guitar Quartet performing Bryce Dessner’s Aheym, meaning “homeward” in Yiddish, and Philip Glass’s Piano Etude No. 16. The Crossing then takes the stage for two signature unaccompanied works on immigration and monuments: Her Beacon-hand Beckons by Caroline Shaw and SHIFT by Ayanna Woods. Shaw’s piece is a movement from To the Hands, which was commissioned by The Crossing as a response to “Ad manus” from Dieterich Buxtehude’s 17th-century masterpiece, Membra Jesu Nostri. Woods’ SHIFT, also commissioned by The Crossing, contemplates the reimagining of our monuments and the myths they represent, with the work building through layers to its climactic arrival, “bursting through the cracks in the story you tell, America.” After intermission, The Crossing and the Dublin Guitar Quartet join forces for Nico Muhly’s inventive, probing How Little You Are, based on the diaries of two Texas pioneer women: Elinore Pruitt Stewart and Mary Alma Blankenship. Their resilience and strength are ever-evident yet balanced with strikingly honest entries on the threats all around, the loneliness of pioneer life, and the anguish of separation from loved ones hundreds of miles away.
Program Information
The Crossing on Tour with Dublin Guitar Quartet
January 27 to February 6, 2022
Learn More: https://www.crossingchoir.org/
Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 7:30pm
University of Richmond | 410 Westhampton Way | Richmond, VA
Friday, January 28, 2022 at 8:00pm
Longwood Gardens | 1001 Longwood Rd | Kennett Square, PA
Sunday, January 30, 2022 at 3:00pm
Hamilton College | 198 College Hill Rd | Clinton, NY
Tuesday, February 1, 2022 at 7:30pm
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College | 4 East Wheelock Street | Hanover, NH
Friday, February 4, 2022 at 7:30pm
Bucknell University | One Dent Dr | Lewisburg, PA
Saturday, February 5, 2022 at 8:00pm
Lafayette College | 730 High St | Easton, PA
Sunday, February 6, 2022 at 3:00pm
Franklin and Marshall College | 637 College Ave | Lancaster, PA
Program:
Bryce Dessner: Aheym
Dublin Guitar Quartet
Philip Glass: Piano Etude No. 16
Dublin Guitar Quartet
Caroline Shaw: Her Beacon-hand Beckons
The Crossing
Ayanna Woods: SHIFT
The Crossing
***Intermission***
Nico Muhly (arr. by Brian Bolger and the Dublin Guitar Quartet): How Little You Are *
The Crossing and Dublin Guitar Quartet
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 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 Dublin Guitar Quartet
The Dublin Guitar Quartet has dedicated its career with unwavering devotion to performing contemporary music, an aspect that makes the ensemble unique within its genre. With the help of eight and eleven-string guitars the quartet has created an original catalogue of arrangements by composers such Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Arvo Part, and Gyorgy Ligeti.
The DGQ's work has brought the attention of some of the world's leading composers. Recent activity includes a release on Philip Glass's Orange Mountain Music label and a new commission by New York's Michael Gordon. The quartet performed alongside the Grammy award winning LA Guitar Quartet, Conspirare, and the Texas Guitar Quartet in a premiere of How Little You Are by Nico Muhly in Austin, Texas in April 2015. The DGQ is also included on a recent recording performing Arvo Part's Summa. The quartet worked with the composer in making the arrangement and received guidance during the recording process. The arrangement is published by the composer's own publisher Universal Edition.
In 2010 the quartet were involved in a performance of Repentance for cello, guitars and double bass by celebrated Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. The composer was present as they joined the Russian cellist Ivan Monighetti in a concert in St. Peter's Church, Drogheda. The DGQ's recording of this work was released on the LCMS label in March 2012.
In 2008, the quartet was honored to share the stage with legendary American composer Philip Glass in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dundalk. The quartet’s 2014 release of the full set of Glass quartets on the composer's own label Orange Mountain Music peaked at No.8 in the US iTunes classical charts in 2015.
The DGQ are developing the electric side of the guitar quartet repertoire with works like Nagoya Guitars and Electric Counterpoint by Steve Reich, and a recent commission for electric guitar quartet, Amplified by Michael Gordon. This was premiered at the David Lang/Bang on a Can curated festival of new music at the National Concert Hall, Dublin in February 2015. The US premiere took place at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) in December 2017.
Other performance highlights include a four-city tour of Colombia and five tours of North American 2013-2016. The DGQ have also performed at the prestigious chamber music venue, Wigmore Hall in London and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. They have also performed in many of the leading venues in the US including Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Phillips Collection Washington, Celebrity Series Boston, Symphony Space, and Lincoln Center in New York. Learn more at www.dublinguitarquartet.com.
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*Artwork at top of release by Sasan Pix
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