The Sunderman Conservatory of Music Hosts The Crossing at Gettysburg College
Photo by Kevin Vondrak for The Crossing
By: Ainsley Green, Staff Writer
On Friday, Sept. 6, Gettysburg College proudly welcomed Grammy Award-winning chamber choir The Crossing directed by Donald Nally. The critically acclaimed ensemble first gave a workshop for students of the college at 3 p.m. during the Conservatory’s regularly scheduled “Now Hear This!” recital hour in Paul Recital Hall. Later in the evening they performed a program titled “What belongs to me?” in Christ Chapel.
Admission to the concert was free to the college and greater Gettysburg community, and a wide variety of audience members came out to witness the incredibly unique musical charisma that is The Crossing. The choral group has been nominated for nine Grammy Awards and has won three Grammys for Best Choral Performance across their 34 studio releases. The Crossing is best known for their connection of music to social, environmental, and political issues and innovating what most would imagine a choir performance to be like through a 21st century lens.
At the workshop conductor Donald Nally and four members of The Crossing, Rebecca Myers, Chelsea Lyons, Michael Jones and Daniel Schwartz, talked about the history of the ensemble and gave more insight as to what the concert would be about that evening. Students and faculty of the Conservatory came out to listen and ask questions to this panel of professional musicians, and they even performed a brief excerpt of the first piece on their program “What belongs to me?”
Nally further explained the goals of the ensemble’s beginnings, stating that, “[We would] eventually get to the point where we are commissioning and building an American repertoire largely of full concert length works [since] there aren’t a lot of those that exist.”
The Crossing has worked closely with many composers, including David Lang, Shara Nova, Gabriela Ortiz and Ayanna Woods, to create the perfect songs that reflect their talents and the messages that they want to convey to their audiences. MJ Johanson ’27 was just one of the students that The Crossing reached with their messaging and participated in the workshop in addition to attending the concert.
Beforehand, Johanson remarked, “I am studying music [at the Sunderman Conservatory] so that I can hopefully make a living off of ensemble and solo performance like this.” Through workshop sessions, students are able to learn from professional musicians on a personal level, an experience that can be very valuable. “I would love to be able to ask them [questions] and their thoughts on if it is a viable goal,” Johanson continued, excited about the prospect of gaining wisdom from the performance.
At 8 p.m. The Crossing took the stage at Christ Chapel to perform their concert program, consisting of a continuous set of pieces that flowed together to make up a cohesive story with music pulled from multiple albums by a variety of composers. As explained in the earlier workshop, the pieces depicted a journey through many emotions and settings, from the darkest depths of anger to the most hopeful moments. Many soloists were featured on the pieces with the most climactic moments bringing the entire choir together. The music showcased many abstract musical effects with the singers’ voices, including spoken words, chromatic dissonances, hints of atonality and wide dynamic ranges. In addition, all of the members of the ensemble used handbells, clapping, glockenspiel, crystal glass harp and more to add percussion to the pieces.
After the entire program was finished, the ensemble immediately received a standing ovation from the audience. Jocelyn Little ’25 was an audience member after ushering the event, courtesy of the music service fraternity at Gettysburg College Sigma Alpha Iota.
“The Crossing was such a moving performance. All of the voices blended together as one and were indistinguishable from one another,” said Little after the concert finished. “It was by far one of my favorite performances I’ve been to while at Gettysburg. It’s something I’ll remember forever!”
This article originally appeared on page 10 of the No. 1 October 2024 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
