The Crossing announces 2026–2027 Season: 'Sometimes I Worry'

More than 20 performances, three album releases, a major museum installation, world premieres, and landmark collaborations explore uncertainty, resilience, and hope through new music

PHILADELPHIA, PA (Tuesday, June 30, 2026) — The Crossing, the four-time Grammy Award-winning chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally and internationally recognized for its commitment to new music, announces its 2026–2027 season, Sometimes I Worry.

Spanning more than twenty performances across Philadelphia, New York, Houston, Richmond, Chapel Hill, and beyond, the season embraces a simple but urgent truth: worry is universal. Through concerts, recordings, exhibitions, collaborations, and premieres, The Crossing asks what becomes possible when we acknowledge our fears rather than conceal them.

“Obviously there’s a bit of irony in our season title; some of us are worrying all the time,” Nally says. “But, at The Crossing we feel that, if we admit the anxiety — if we sing through it, touring, recording, listening, breathing, hoping – maybe we can change it.”

The season features several significant firsts for the ensemble, including performances at Rothko Chapel in Houston; a new film and installation project, How to Survive, with artist Suzanne Bocanegra; a fully staged presentation of David Lang’s poor hymnal; new collaborations with JACK Quartet and Bang on a Can All-Stars; world premieres composed by Gavin Bryars, Ayanna Woods, Shara Nova, and Hildur Guðnadóttir; the U.S. premiere of Kareem Roustom’s Hushed; and music by Jacob Mühlrad and Nathaniel Parks.

The season also welcomes the return of several works central to The Crossing’s artistic identity, including David T. Little’s SIN-EATER, David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning the little match girl passion, Joshua Stamper’s ’mid the steep sky’s commotion, and performances at longtime partner venues including The Fabric Workshop and Museum, the University of Richmond, UNC Chapel Hill, and Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh.

Continuing to add to its substantial recording catalogue, The Crossing will release three albums during the 2026-2027 Season. The first of these, in October, will include several works dealing with aging. Stacy Garrop's In a House Besieged (commissioned and premiered in April 2022), on texts of Lydia Davis, features Scott Dettra on the Mander organ of the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. Robert Maggio's The Woman Where We Are Living (commissioned and premiered in July 2014), based on Dr. Alzheimer's journals, features Elizabeth Steiner on harp. And, Christopher Jessup's Astronomia, which draws on Whitman's poems of wonder and of death. Celebrating the installation at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in a project that brings together so many wonderful collaborators, The Crossing will release the four works of How to Survive as an album on Cantaloupe Records during the exhibition's run, November 19 - January 3. Works of Ayanna Woods, Julia Wolfe, Shara Nova, and Hildur Guðnadóttir, based on the How to Survive concept and scripts of artist Suzanne Bocanegra. Spring will bring the release of two major collaborations on one album with Present Music: Christopher Cerrone's Of being numerous (based on poems of George Oppen), and with Sandbox Percussion, Harold Meltzer's You Are Who I Love (based on the poem of Aracelis Girmay).

TIME
Sunday, October 25, 5:00 p.m.
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia

The season opens with Time, an exploration of memory, nature, and transformation.

The centerpiece is the East Coast premiere of Nicholas Cline’s The Sea Came Up and Drowned, a sweeping composition from the North Carolina-based composer whose work is often focused on the environment (as in The Crossing’s recording of his Watersheds), in immersive musical landscapes that blur the boundaries between contemporary classical music, improvisation, and environmental sound. The program also includes a reprise performance of Joshua Stamper’s ’mid the steep sky’s commotion (premiered in 2018), a meditation on fragility, as heard in the wind and seen in the discarded — and found — objects of cityscapes, reflecting the composer’s questions about ecology, place, and human vulnerability.

WIND
Daily, November 19, 2026–January 3, 2027
The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

The Crossing returns to The Fabric Workshop and Museum — this time as a major multimedia installation, How to Survive, conceived and designed by artist and writer Suzanne Bocanegra. The exhibition will run for more than six weeks.

The project combines film, installation, and music by an extraordinary group of contemporary creators. Icelandic composer and Academy Award-winning artist Hildur Guðnadóttir brings her distinctive atmospheric language; singer, composer, and My Brightest Diamond founder Shara Nova contributes music rooted in intimacy and experimentation; Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Wolfe lends her powerful, socially engaged voice; and composer-vocalist Ayanna Woods, one of the most compelling emerging artists of her generation, explores identity, community, and belonging. With sound by multiple-Grammy-winner Paul Vazquez and films by Four/Ten Media, one of the country’s premier teams capturing live music, the installation is an immersive, instructional, at times droll and at other times terrifying look at survival.

How to Survive is made possible through generous support by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, with additional support from Carol Westfall, The New England Foundation for Psychoanalysis and the National Endowment for the Arts.

FIRE
The Crossing @ Christmas 2026
The Jeffrey Dinsmore Memorial Concerts

Friday, December 18, 7:00 p.m.
St. Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

Saturday, December 19, 5:00 p.m.
St. Peter’s Church, New York City

Sunday, December 20, 5:00 p.m.
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia

The Crossing’s annual December concerts illuminate themes of compassion, endurance, and spiritual reflection; how we treat each other, how we treat the Earth.. At the heart of the program is David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning the little match girl passion, one of the defining choral works of the 21st century. The concerts also feature a world premiere (a gift from the composer to The Crossing) by legendary British composer Gavin Bryars, who is setting the deeply self-aware poetry of Fernando Pessoa. The program opens with Swedish composer Jacob Mühlrad — new to The Crossing — whose music combines ancient resonances and Jewish traditions with a strikingly contemporary voice.

DARK
January–February 2027 | Richmond, Houston, and Chapel Hill

The season turns inward with Dark, featuring staged performances of David Lang’s poor hymnal.

One of America’s most influential composers, Lang has built a body of work that reimagines ritual, faith, and collective experience. In poor hymnal, the eleventh work Lang has composed for The Crossing, he strips sacred music to its essence, removing the deity from the texts and sifting them down to the simplest, most direct language inviting the communal acts of listening and reflection. These performances mark an important expansion of the work through fully staged presentations.

Friday, January 29, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, January 30, 3:00 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
University of Richmond Modlin Center for the Arts

Friday, February 19, 11:00 a.m. & 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 20, 11:30 a.m.
Sunday, February 21, 1:00 p.m.
UNC Chapel Hill – Gerrard Hall

This tour also includes three performances of the original concert (unstaged) version of poor hymnal, in The Crossing’s Rothko Chapel debut.

Monday, February 15, 6:00 p.m. & 8:00 p.m.
Tuesday, February 16, 7:30 p.m.
Rothko Chapel, Houston

GONE
Friday, April 9, 7:30 p.m.
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York City

The Crossing’s first collaboration with the celebrated Bang on a Can All-Stars takes both ensembles to Carnegie Hall for the New York premiere of David Lang’s before and after nature. Written in response to environmental change and humanity’s shifting relationship with the natural world, the work exemplifies Lang’s ability to transform urgent, contemporary concerns into music of profound emotional resonance. The program promises a very special evening — a coming together of like-minded musicians to wonder at time, nature, and the universe.

EARTH
Saturday, April 17, 3:00 p.m.
The First Presbyterian Church of Germantown, Philadelphia
Presented by Artcinia

Sunday, April 18, 5:00 p.m.
Shadyside Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh

Earth revisits The Crossing’s acclaimed program what belongs to me, bringing together music by three composers whose voices have become increasingly vital to contemporary music.

Grammy- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz is celebrated for virtuosic music that bridges cultural traditions and modern expression. Shara Nova’s works for The Crossing demonstrate her own extraordinary vocal abilities and her ability to merge disparate musical styles into an organic language of her own. Ayanna Woods explores personal and collective identity through compelling and imaginative sound worlds that demand we listen.

LOVE
The Month of Moderns 2027
w/ JACK Quartet
Saturday, June 19, 5:00 p.m.
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia

Friday, June 25, 7:00 p.m.
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia

The season concludes with The Crossing’s annual Month of Moderns festival, made particularly special by guest appearances by the renowned JACK Quartet.

The first program, Month of Moderns 1, features a reprise of David T. Little’s SIN-EATER, a visceral and theatrical work examining guilt, redemption, and the burdens we carry for one another. Little has emerged as one of America’s most distinctive compositional voices, combining operatic intensity with fearless emotional honesty. SIN-EATER asks questions about who are the gatekeepers – in ancient and modern times – and what sacrifices they make for others.

The festival’s second program, Month of Moderns 2, introduces music by two composers making deeply personal contributions to contemporary music. Los Angeles-based composer Nathaniel Parks presents but sometimes i worry, from which the 2026-2027 season theme is drawn. The work asks how much is too much – for example, just in saying “I love you.” The program also includes the U.S. premiere of Hushed by Syrian-American composer Kareem Roustom in a new version arranged for this occasion. Roustom’s music draws on Middle Eastern traditions and Western classical forms to create works of extraordinary lyricism and humanity.

About The Crossing
The Crossing is a professional chamber choir conducted by Donald Nally that sings only new music, bringing together creative teams to imagine, present, and record new, substantial works for choir that look at the world and our place in it. Often using a journalistic approach to text curation, The Crossing commissions music that explores and expands ways of writing for choir, singing in choir, and listening to music for choir; many of its over 200 commissioned premieres address social, environmental, and political issues. With a commitment to recording, The Crossing has issued 41 albums, receiving four Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019, 2023, 2025), and eleven Grammy nominations in ten consecutive years. The Crossing, with Donald Nally, was Musical America’s 2024 Ensemble of the Year, the American Composers Forum’s 2017 Champion of New Music, and received the 2015 Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence from Chorus America.

Major support for The Crossing is provided by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, The Anne M. & Philip H. Glatfelter III Family Foundation, The Neubauer Family Foundation, Justus and Elizabeth Schlichting, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, The New England Foundation for Psychoanalysis, The Presser Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Philadelphia Cultural Fund, TIFF Advisory Services II, Shawn L. Felton, Peter and Judy Leone, Drs. Dennis and Anne Wentz, an anonymous donor, and a community of generous, dedicated friends.

The Crossing is represented by Alliance Artist Management and Luzi Media. The Crossing’s recordings are made possible through the generosity of Carol Westfall.