FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR Contact: Leah Rankin | Morahan Arts and Media
leah@morahanartsandmedia.com | 716-868-6278

The Crossing Releases
Carols after a Plague

Out December 9 on New Focus Recordings

Album Page:

https://bit.ly/3hlj7pw

Physical Copies Available Upon Request

"The Crossing and conductor Donald Nally are one of the most fruitful commissioners of new choral music around." -Musical America

www.crossingchoir.org

Philadelphia, PA (November 16, 2022) — On December 9, 2022, acclaimed GRAMMY-winning choir The Crossing, led by Donald Nally, releases its 29th album Carols after a Plague, on New Focus Recordings (physical album available January 6, 2023). Premiered in December 2021 during The Crossing @ Christmas concerts in Philadelphia, PA, Carols after a Plague brings together 12 composers to write new works for The Crossing. Following the premiere, The Philadelphia Inquirer described Carols after a Plague as having “frankly acknowledged our revised reality but with a kind of humanitarian awareness revealing manifestations of love behind the troubles we’re seeing.”

Framed by Shara Nova’s work, Carols after a Plague, the album features works by Tyshawn Sorey, Edith Canat de Chizy, Joseph C. Phillips, Jr., L.J. White, Samantha Fernando, Leila Adu-Gilmore, Nina Shekhar, Vanessa Lan, Mary Jane Leach, Alex Burko, and Viet Cuong. Ranging from ruminations about isolation and discontent, to invitations to sing, to reflections about our common humanity and what brings us together, each composer submits their own brief carol showcasing a variety of deeply personal and diverse interpretations of the pandemic. For example, Adu-Gilmore’s piece Colouring-In Book, dedicated “to every child, teenager & adult who needs to know that they are not alone,” acknowledges the struggle of everyday people by using imagery of the black and white coloring book to represent the tension of trying hard at life only to achieve the same outcomes.

“Our plagues are many - a pandemic, racism, gun violence, poverty…. - and we learn to live with them,” Donald Nally said. “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, about enlightenment, and about salvation reached, not from a benevolent deity, but from ourselves.”

About 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 150 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, 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 the 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 released 29 albums, 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, Eric Southern, and Steven Bradshaw, and composers David Lang, Paul Fowler, and Michael Gordon on live and animated versions of new and existing works. Lang’s protect yourself from infection and in nature were specifically designed to be performed within the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, during which The Crossing premiered a number of newly-commissioned works for outdoors by Matana Roberts, Wang Lu, and Ayanna Woods.

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 New Focus Recordings
New Focus Recordings is an artist-led collective label featuring releases in contemporary creative music of many stripes, as well as new approaches to older repertoire. The label was founded by guitarist Dan Lippel, composer Peter Gilbert in 2004, and composer/engineer Ryan Streber in 2004, formed around the production of the first five albums in the catalogue. Many of the subsequent releases within those first years involved artists who also continue to be heard on recordings on the label in recent years - featured members of the International Contemporary Ensemble including pianist Jacob Greenberg, flutist Claire Chase, cellist Kivie-Cahn Lipman, soprano Tony Arnold, composer/percussionist Nathan Davis, clarinetist Joshua Rubin, composer/performer Du Yun, composer Dai Fujikura, composer/pianist Phyllis Chen, alongside others in the ICE community, and members of new music quartet Flexible Music, pianist Eric Huebner, percussionist Haruka Fujii, and saxophonist Tim Ruedeman, along with several of the group's associated composer and performer colleagues, notably John Link, Steve Ricks, Jeff Irving, David Laganella, Adam Silverman, Antares, Orianna Webb, Vineet Shende, Van Stiefel, Erin Lesser, and Mikel Kuehn, who released recordings or appeared as guests on others. In the first several years of New Focus, these musicians shared their artistry in fantastic recordings which shaped the direction of the New Focus catalogue and helped to lay the foundation for the label.

Carols after a Plague Tracklist
1. Prelude: Adam [1:53]
2. SHARA NOVA – Carols after a Plague: I. Urgency [3:27]
3. Interlude 1: Wonder [0:40]
4. TYSHAWN SOREY – Requiem for a Plague [4:44]
5. Interlude 2: Dancing [1:26]
6. EDITH CANAT DE CHIZY – Rising Stars [4:37]
7. Interlude 3: Beauty [1:01]
8. JOSEPH C. PHILLIPS, JR. – The Undisappeared [5:46]
9. Interlude 4: Here [1:26]
10. L.J. WHITE – a carol called love [6:49]
11. Interlude 5: Apparel [0:48]
12. SAMANTHA FERNANDO – Everything Passes, Everything is Connected [3:30]
13. Interlude 6: Frightful [1:32]
14. LEILA ADU-GILMORE – Colouring-In Book [5:15]
15. Interlude 7: Snowman [1:39]
16. NINA SHEKHAR – y-mas [7:16]
17. Interlude 8: Silent [1:02]
18. SHARA NOVA – Carols after a Plague: II. Tone-policing [2:19]
19. Interlude 9: Peace [1:00]
20. VANESSA LANN – Shining Still [6:19]
21. Interlude 10: Fa/La [1:05]
22. MARY JANE LEACH – Alone Together [3:43]
23. Interlude 11: Eve [0:49]
24. ALEX BURKO – Exodus [5:58]
25. Interlude 12: Power [1:33]
26. VIET CUONG – Still So Much to Say [3:39]
27. Interlude 13: Gloria [1:20]
28. SHARA NOVA – Carols after a Plague: III. Resolve [3:12]

Total Time: [83:52]

Donald Nally, conductor
Kevin Vondrak, assistant conductor
John Grecia, keyboards
Mark Livshits, guest rehearsal accompanist
Michael Jones, trumpet
Daniel Schwartz and Ted Babcock, marimba
Karen Blanchard, Micah Dingler, Joanna Gates, and Kyle Sackett, percussion and paper
Kevin Vondrak, mandolin
Donald Nally, interludes composer

Carols after a Plague was recorded August 29 through September 2, 2021, and August 11, 2022, at St. Peter’s Church in the Great Valley, Malvern, Pennsylvania.

Recording Producers: Paul Vazquez, Donald Nally, and Kevin Vondrak
Recording Engineer: Paul Vazquez
Assistant Recording Engineers: Dante Portella and Henry Koch
Editing, Mixing & Mastering: Paul Vazquez

Artwork: “The New Normal” (cover) by Sasan Pix (2021) sasanpix.com

This album is made possible through the generous support of Carol Westfall, longtime friend and benefactor of The Crossing.

Carols after a Plague
A project of twelve commissioned works
Premiered at The Crossing @ Christmas 2021, The Jeffrey Dinsmore Memorial Concerts
December 12 at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
December 17 at The Annenberg Center
December 19 at The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

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