World Premiere of David Lang’s in nature, Performed by The Crossing and Roots in the Sky, Now Available to Stream

 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR Contact: Katy Salomon | Morahan Arts and Media
katy@morahanartsandmedia.com | 863.660.2214

Watch the World Premiere of David Lang’s in nature
Co-Presented by The Crossing and Warren Miller Performing Arts Center

A Work Written for Two Choirs, Distanced and Singing Remotely, 
Recorded at Philadelphia’s Icebox and Performed Live from the
Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Montana

Watch the World Premiere of in nature,
Performed by The Crossing and Roots in the Sky

“America’s most astonishing choir” – The New York Times

www.crossingchoir.org 

Philadelphia, PA (August 11, 2020) — The world premiere performance of David Lang’s in nature, performed by GRAMMY-winning choir The Crossing and Montana-based choir Roots in the Sky on Saturday, August 1, 2020 is now available to stream in full. Watch the world premiere of David Lang’s in nature.

A co-presentation by Warren Miller Performing Arts Center (WMPAC) and The Crossing, the live performance featured 20 singers of The Crossing, recorded one at a time at the Icebox Project Space at CraneArts in Philadelphia, combined in real time with the live performances of four socially-distanced singers of Roots in the Sky (formerly the Aoide Chamber Singers, conducted by Andrew Major) on the stage of WMPAC in Big Sky, Montana. The backdrop for the entire production, conceived and conducted by Donald Nally, is a giant projection of the Gallatin River, which flows just feet away from WMPAC.

The work was specifically written as a hybrid of live and pre-filmed music observing the limitations presented by COVID-19. As such, the singers reached over the 2100 miles span between them to make a work of art together. in nature reflects The Crossing’s commitment to their Montana summer home at WMPAC, led by its Executive Director, John Zirkle. The text, by Lang, is a series of reflections and thoughts of being in nature and the work both celebrates and marks the absence of nature during the pandemic.

The Crossing also recently released David Lang's protect yourself from infection in a new film version, which gained national attention and was featured in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NPR's Performance Today.

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 over 100 commissioned premieres address social, environmental, and political issues. With a commitment to recording its commissions, The Crossing has issued 21 releases, receiving two GRAMMY Awards for Best Choral Performance (2018, 2019), and five GRAMMY nominations in four years.

The Crossing collaborates with some of the world’s most accomplished ensembles and artists, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, Network for New Music, Lyric Fest, Piffaro, Tempesta di Mare Baroque Chamber Orchestra, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Toshimaru Nakamura, the Annenberg Center, Beth Morrison Projects, Dolce Suono, Allora & Calzadilla, Pig Iron Theatre Company, The Rolling Stones, and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), with whom they have appeared at Miller Theatre of Columbia University in the American premiere of James Dillon’s Nine Rivers, Peak Performances at Montclair State University, The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the National Gallery in Washington D.C., and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. The Crossing joined Bang on a Can for its first Philadelphia Marathon. Similarly, The Crossing often collaborates with some of the world’s most prestigious venues and presenters, such as the Park Avenue Armory, the Annenberg Center at the University of Pennsylvania, National Sawdust, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Haarlem Choral Biennale in The Netherlands, The Kennedy Center in Washington, the Philadelphia Art Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Delaware Museum of Art, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space in New York, the WNYC Winter Garden, and Duke, Northwestern, Rowan, Salisbury, Colgate, and Notre Dame Universities. In 2014, they premiered John Luther Adams’ Sila: the breath of the world at Lincoln Center with Jack Quartet and eighth blackbird. The Crossing holds an annual residency at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Montana where they are working on an extensive, multi-year project with composer Michael Gordon and filmmaker Bill Morrison. Their concerts are broadcast regularly on WRTI 90.1FM, Philadelphia’s Classical and Jazz Public Radio.

The Crossing’s recordings of Robert Convery and Benjamin Boyle’s Voyages (August 2019, Innova) and Kile Smith’s The Arc in the Sky (July 2019, Navona) were both nominated for 2020 GRAMMY Awards for Best Choral Performance. Lansing McLoskey's Zealot Canticles won the 2019 GRAMMY and Thomas Lloyd’s Bonhoeffer (Albany 2016) was nominated for the 2017 GRAMMY, both as Best Choral Performance. The Crossing’s collaboration with PRISM, Gavin Bryars’ The Fifth Century (ECM, October 2016), was the winner of the 2018 GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance and named one of The Chicago Tribune’s Top 10 Classical CDs of 2016.

The Crossing, with Donald Nally, was the American Composers Forums’ 2017 Champion of New Music. The Crossing’s 2014 commission Sound from The Bench by Ted Hearne was named a 2018 Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Music. They were the recipient of the 2015 Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, three ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming, as well as the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award (with composer Joel Puckett) from Chorus America. Learn more at www.crossingchoir.org 

About Roots in the Sky
Roots in the Sky (formerly the Aoide Chamber Singers) have established themselves as one of Montana’s premier chamber choirs. Founded in the fall of 2012 at Montana State University by a small group of friends in the Honors College, their high level of artistry and commitment to living composers drew attention from others and membership quickly expanded. Roots in the Sky is a dedicated advocate of contemporary composers, with performances concentrating on music of the 21st century and its origins in earlier music.

Sought-after for collaborations, Roots in the Sky has appeared with Grammy-Award winning choir The Crossing and with the Jitro Czech Children's Choir. Roots in the Sky has sung across Montana including performances at Tippett Rise with the MSU Honors College Musicale, in Red Lodge as part of Music from the Beartooths, in the Bozeman Public Library as part of the Montana Chamber Music Society's Noon Notes program for elementary students, as the chorus of a contemporary chamber opera at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, at First Presbyterian Church of Bozeman as part of their Mainly Music season, and in concert in Missoula, Kalispell, Big Sky, and in the Cathedral of St. Helena.

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