|
Our 2025-2026 Season:
Of being numerous
In Review
| | |
We had a lot of fun this past season.
And, we had a lot of fun revisiting it, here, in our annual assessment of what worked, what didn’t, how we grew, what we learned. Today, at the start of September, the start of our new season (Fall!) we look back at just what happened in twelve brief months.
The theme was “Of being numerous.” In December, we wrote about that. Who is that?
Us, in our numerousness: of multitudes, of means, of diversity of ideas and backgrounds, of shared resolve that singing about our world, creating lasting art works about our time, seeking truths with grace, has value worthy of us showing up.
We showed up. A lot. So, this is a read.
Grab your morning coffee or a healthy pour of Dad’s Hat and join us.
| | Workshopping in our home, The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill | | |
We begin by playing around..
2024-2025 Resident Composer Sarah Rimkus returns to workshop Nativity. (Read through to December to hear about the premiere!)
We love workshops. We experiment, we discover, we screw up and laugh a lot. We live through the evolution from a composer’s “idea” to “new work.”
| | |
Fruits of the Resident Composer Program
We premiere 2023-2024 Resident Composer Nina Shekhar’s Tic-Talk, with Philadelphia pianist Dynasty Battles on MIDI keyboard. Luxury casting, and our first collaboration with Artcinia, bringing our music to underserved communities. A journey into self from Nina – tics, language, speech-policing, overcoming. With music of Anuj Bhutani, the first live performance of Michael Gilbertson's Cloud Anthem, and a world premiere of Kile Smith.
Questioning Numerousness.
| | Our concert at The First Presbyterian Church in Germantown, presented by Artcinia | | More great album art from our friends:
this time, Nia Easley | | |
Album #38: FARMING
Farming, Ted Hearne’s hyperpop/vaporwave-influenced magnum opus reaches record shelves, out on Deathbomb Arc. If you haven’t listened yet, do – like nothing else we (or anyone else?) have done! Who owns the land? Who owns us? Jeff Bezos and William Penn discuss!
We’re partnering
I am not such a man
My God has given it to me
Has a lot to do with selling books
| | |
Virtues Workshop
Another workshop, this time investigating our Virtues through the lens of, first Ben Franklin, and then, Nathalie Joachim who was writing a work for MoM 2026. So easy to work with her and so fun to consider what these virtues mean in 2026
USA USA USA!
| | Donald and Nathalie discussing Virtues in workshop. | | We have chosen the meaning / Of being numerous. | | |
Our Milwaukee debut!
We sang to a packed house of Present Music’s faithful following – with their commission for us, Chris Cerrone’s Of being numerous. (Title work of our season! Watch for the album next Spring.) In the glorious acoustics of The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist – across from a crazy Christmas light show Gary loved.
| | The Cerrone Recording group – The Crossing and Present Music! – at Cedar Ridge Studio in Pottstown. | | |
Recording Academy Update
We’re nominated: poor hymnal by David Lang (a name we’ll be saying a lot this coming season as head to Carnegie Hall, Rothko Chapel, U of Richmond, UNC Chapel Hill, New York, home with his music).
Grammy-nominated 10 Years in a row,
we’re used to being asked “is it just boring now?” No, it is not; it is fun, and more people discover works we love, like poor hymnal. (Stay tuned for the staged version: assembly of the poor hymnal, coming January 2027!)
| | Denise Burt's cover design for poor hymnal. | | |
A Busy Month
Workshop #2 – music of Julia Wolfe, Hildur Guðnadottir, Shara Nova and Ayanna Woods, with three composers in attendance. This time exploring ideas for How To Survive – our film exhibition, conceived and designed by Suzanne Bocanegra, opening at Fabric Workshop and Museum in November.
We learned so much about siren sounds!
If you memorize these ‘songs’ you’ll remember how to survive a tornado. Or an earthquake. Or hurricane. Or wildfire.
| The Crossing @ Christmas at our home, PCCH. | | Shara, Donald, Ayanna, Julia, and Michael Gordon. | |
The Crossing @ Christmas: two premieres with our cello bestie Tommy Mesa, a New York performance, and our community’s annual homecoming at PCCH. Sarah Rimkus’s Nativity – a bracingly raw look at childbirth, and Kyiv, an equally compelling work by Ukraine composer Natalia Tsupryk inspired by the sounds of air raids in an arrangement by Kevin Vondrak (our associate conductor, returning from a doctoral program to join us full-time in September – welcome back!!). Kyiv demands we question how we live in – or do not – our numerousness.
| | |
Another Album: the sense of senses
Music of (guess who!?) David Lang.
the sense of senses out on Cantaloupe Music.
Have you heard sleeper’s prayer? You should hear sleeper’s prayer.
(We’re not going to say which number album this is, because we’re leading to a big one.)
| | Denise Burt's cover design for the sense of senses. | | Workshop with BoCo students. | | |
Boston!
Masterclass! We visit Boston Conservatory’s excellent choral program for an afternoon of coaching graduate conducting students. (And it gives us the opportunity for a little historic music we cherish: Samuel Barber!)
| | |
Our return to Boston’s Symphony Hall, this time as a solo act, with yet another performance of David Lang’s poor hymnal as the first half of a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert.
January. Boston. Snow. Cold. Eliot Hotel. Boston Symphony. Ortiz. Guerrero. Numerousness. Paradise.
| | One stage at Symphony Hall in Boston (photo by Winslow Townson). | | And, we become Grammy losers. Our statuettes sigh in melancholic wistfulness. BUT, we celebrate composer friend Gaby Ortiz and our colleagues at LA Master Chorale and LA Phil for their win – such a great recording! | | With Sandbox Percussion at Stanford! | | |
California!
First trip to Stanford Live.
We team up with those smart guys at Sandbox Percussion again, for a reprise of Harold Meltzer’s You Are Who I Love.
Gift at Stanford: Poet Aracelis Girmay (on the faculty) reads the poem Harold set from the stage. And Harold’s family attends. Amazing.
We record it….due out April 2027!
| | With Claire Chase onstage at Zankel Hall in NYC. | |
New York, Knoxville.
We bring back our concert of Tania León, Ayanna Woods, and Wang Lu and we take it to Carnegie Hall. But first, our debut in Chocolate Town USA – Hershey, PA with the incredibly generous community at Derry Presbyterian Church. From there, we join forces with Artcinia again to bring this tour de force concert with flute legend Claire Chase to St. Luke and the Epiphany in Philly. Then, NYC: Zankel has become one of our New York homes. The Carnegie staff, crew, ethos – always a good vibe, perfect to bring the words of Rita Dove, Forrest Gander, and Ayanna to the stage.
And then, to Knoxville. Our second appearance at the Big Ears Festival.
This is a fa-vo-rite. We are in the company of so many extraordinary musicians of so many styles. Want rock? That’s down the street. Indie music? Next door. Jazz? Up the street. poor hymnal? Well, that’s in a packed church for two performances of people who evidently know us and what we’re talking about. We could do this every year! Numerousness as defined by musical styles.
| At the First Presbyterian Sanctuary in our first performance at Big Ears since 2017! | | |
Finally, the Gabriel Jackson album. #40.
How appropriate that Album #40 is with this composer. Maybe it’s providence that it took till (milestone) #40 to appear. RIGWRECK spans fifteen years of collaborations. Our first of five commissions was in 2011: According to Seneca. Then came, Rigwreck; Yes, I am Your Angel (a Jeff Quartet); Self-Portrait in Charleston, Orlando; and Darest thou now O soul. We consider them a streak of hits – who doesn’t want to engage with beauty that is elusive and challenging?
| | Art by our 2024-2025 season artist, Rita Quattrocchi | | Highmark Mann Center brings us together with CAPA (School for Creative and Performing Arts) in a deeply rewarding exchange of singing and ideas (thanks Jay Fluellen!). We had a ball listening and sharing. | | | MoM1 at Broad Street Love in Center City Philadelphia. | Onstage and in costume at the Highmark Mann Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra. | | |
The Month of Moderns
Enter ArtPhilly, ground zero for the Philadelphia Arts Community’s celebration of USA at 250 – an organization dedicated to telling the real stories of how we got to today. Not the myths, the truths. And in these stories our numerousness blossoms and flourishes. We are grateful to everyone in this project, this extended event, this crazy and successful experiment, and to be presented in four performances that explore the social justice aspects of our self-created canon…and to celebrate Philadelphia composers! (Gary is partial to hanging with Nathalie Joachim, but it doesn’t hurt that she set some Ben Franklin text and then put it under a magnifying glass.) Tommy returns with his cello!
Our Highmark Mann Center debut, teaming back up with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Peter Boyer and Mark Campbells’ Campbell’s A Hundred Years On – celebrating the 1876 exhibition on the land we are singing in Fairmount Park. Great audience, great band, great evening.
| | |
The Book of Never
And in the midst of that, we move right on to Album #41! Aaron Helgeson’s The Book of Never. The story of an attempt to obliterate numerousness; of oppression and struggle, and of words. A determination to preserve a culture. Ties to ancient Ukraine, revealed through contemporary views on liberalism. Helgeson, The Crossing, Parma/Navona Records.
A month of really feeling what we’re trying to do: making relevant art, telling our stories.
| | Album artwork by tenor Steven Bradshaw | | | | |
Scene!
We spend a month preparing for and then filming How to Survive at Cedar Ridge Studio. (Hello Pottstown; Gary likes the outlets!) There is so much to say about this project (Thank you Pew Center, NEFP, and Carol Westfall!)
How to Survive opens as a film installation November 19 at the Fabric Workshop and Museum; the exhibit runs through January 3.
| | |
You Made It!
You’ve been a patient friend as we stumbled through our season story, and we’re a little tired of writing. But, there is a prize of those that have made it this far. It is a set of three (different) ‘vintage’ Crossing pins and one (somewhat worthless) CD (they make nice coasters) for anyone that clicks HERE. Our little way of saying, Oh, brave soul, we truly appreciate you and the journeys you go on with us.
| | | | |
Our 2026-2027 SEASON: Sometimes I Worry
| |
Moving from numerousness to worry - it seems a natural transition today. Please consider supporting us as we tackle a new set of all-too-real topics in our 2026-2027 Season: Sometimes I Worry.
| | Donor-Advised Fund contributions can be arranged via DAFDirect: | | | | |
