Donald Nally on The Crossing, Contemporary Choral Music, and Their GRAMMY-Winning Album OCHRE

Donald Nally is a conductor, educator, and champion of contemporary choral music. As the director of The Crossing—Musical America’s 2024 Ensemble of the Year—he has commissioned nearly 200 new works and led the ensemble to three GRAMMY Awards for Best Choral Performance. Nally’s innovative approach to choral music extends beyond the concert stage, collaborating with leading composers, visual artists, and institutions worldwide to create socially and environmentally conscious works.

Under his leadership, The Crossing has redefined the possibilities of choral performance, partnering with major orchestras like the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics and presenting ground-breaking projects at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Park Avenue Armory. Their latest triumph, OCHRE, released on Navona Records, won the GRAMMY Award for Best Choral Performance at the 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards, marking another milestone in their longstanding collaboration with the label.

In this conversation, Nally shares insights into his creative process, the evolution of The Crossing, and the ensemble’s commitment to using music as a force for change.

Nikhil Sardana: You’ve commissioned nearly 200 works for choir. What drives your commitment to creating new choral music, and how do you choose the composers you collaborate with?

Donald Nally: Thanks for asking this. I am primarily interested in telling the stories of our time. We think of it as musical journalism, where the topic is “us”—“We were here, and this is what it felt like to be here.” I work with many composers daily, which is an incredibly inspiring way to live. (I’m writing this from Boston, where we’re working with the BSO and Gabriela Ortiz on her Revolución Diamantina, and it reaffirms why we do what we do: gripping music, a topic that demands we empower women and challenge misguided authority, and an extraordinary level of artistry from everyone involved.)

Everything we commission is topic-specific; our seasons have themes, and new works are chosen to fit within them. I maintain an evolving list of composers and match the topic to the right artist. While I have many composer friends, we also receive near-daily unsolicited submissions from composers we don’t yet know. Though most of these don’t align with our programming, occasionally, we encounter a compositional perspective that intrigues us. I also spend a lot of time ‘sleuthing’—exploring the work of emerging composers, examining choral trends worldwide, and considering which themes are (and aren’t) being addressed in music.

NS: The Crossing often addresses social and environmental issues through music. Can you share a specific project that had a particularly strong impact on audiences or communities?

DN: It’s hard to single out one project. We invest fully in all of our work, so almost everything feels impactful. However, a recent project that continues to resonate is Ted Hearne’s Farming, a 90-minute staged work that explores a dialogue between Jeff Bezos and William Penn—two figures who describe themselves as benevolent ‘fathers.’

The piece is simultaneously catchy and unsettling, and that’s the point. It seduces like a commercial yet asks profound and haunting questions. Musically, it blends hyperpop, 24-voice canons, country music, jingles, and sampling, all while examining how music influences the way we receive messages. Audiences walk away questioning the history of land ownership, food sovereignty in the United States, and, more broadly, their place in capitalism’s relentless march. Farming also forces us to reflect on the role of musical style in shaping perception. It’s musically demanding, but conducting it is incredibly rewarding.

NS: Your work spans collaborations with major orchestras, museums, and visual artists. How do interdisciplinary projects shape your approach to choral music? 

DN: At my core, I am a storyteller. I spent 25 years working in professional opera companies because of my passion for narrative. Everything I do—whether choral music, installations, or orchestral collaborations—serves that goal: telling stories with clarity.

I’ve collaborated with artists like Allora & Calzadilla and composer David Lang on live installation pieces in museums. In lifespan, for example, three performers interact with a four-billion-year-old rock hanging from the ceiling, reminding us of our breath and our impermanence—our fleeting existence set against something ancient and inanimate. In another project, 30 singers respond vocally to the hum of an electric transformer, a metaphor for the injustices of energy resource politics in Puerto Rico. These collaborations profoundly impact my work, offering new tools and insights into crafting both historical and contemporary pieces, posing questions without dictating morality, making complex topics intimate, and reminding me why we sing together in the first place.

NS: With 36 albums and four GRAMMY Awards, The Crossing has set a benchmark for contemporary choral performance. What defines the ensemble’s artistic identity?

DN: Our identity is rooted in community. We are a collective of like-minded artists who believe in the value of exploring meaningful topics and the importance of deep listening. Our singers invest significant time preparing our scores before rehearsals—it takes real commitment to engage with our music at that level.

Another defining trait is our sound. We have developed a signature vocal style that people either love or struggle with—both as singers and listeners. But we love it. And that sound is adaptable: it can express desire, anger, grief. It isn’t static but shifts depending on the theme and the composer’s intent.

Ultimately, our artistic identity is a synthesis of the singers’ artistry and my imagination. While I shape the vision, they create the sound.

NS: The Crossing has released 18 albums with PARMA Recordings’ Navona Records label, earning multiple GRAMMY nominations and awards. How has this partnership influenced the ensemble’s artistic development and recording philosophy?

DN: We consider PARMA/Navona true partners. The most important aspect of our collaboration is that they never attempt to influence our artistic direction. Instead, they trust our vision and support our evolving explorations of choral music.

Our philosophy is simple: there is immense value in recording new music with the composer present. This allows us to create a true ‘record’ of their artistic intent. The heavy lifting is done by our singers and recording team—our engineer, Paul Vazquez (whom I’ve worked with for 30 years), our co-producer Kevin Vondrak (10 years), and myself.

NS: You’ve held leading roles with opera companies such as Lyric Opera of Chicago and Welsh National Opera. How has your experience in opera influenced your work with The Crossing?

DN: It all comes back to storytelling: music as theatre, or the music of the theatre.  My first professional roles were as chorus master with Gian Carlo Menotti at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and with Opera Philadelphia, and that set me on a path in that genre for quite a while, always working to define the chorus’ character and the individual characters within that broader framework. That same thinking applies to The Crossing—always exploring the tension between the individual and the community, both artistically and personally.

This connection between opera and choral music extends to concert presentation. I strive to develop an American choral canon with substantial, concert-length works rather than collections of short pieces loosely arranged around a theme. I want concerts to feel like immersive narratives—where audiences connect with the music on a deeply human level. That’s why we integrate elements like projected supertitles, lighting, and seamless transitions between pieces. We also never speak during concerts; instead, we let the music and the text guide the audience’s experience.

NS: Rising w/ The Crossing, your response to the pandemic, was preserved by the Library of Congress. What was the creative process behind this project, and what does it mean to you? 

DN: It’s humbling to have Rising w/ The Crossing recognized as a cultural artifact. The National Archives has also requested to preserve the history and correspondence of Carols after a Plague, another pandemic-era project.

Rising was a reflexive response to the sudden shutdown of March 13, 2020. We were to be at Carnegie Hall a week later, and had a concert scheduled at Westminster Choir College, and it was of course all cancelled. No work for singers. No community for singers.

I needed a way to maintain a sense of connection—not just for our singers but also for our audience and supporters. Each Rising chapter featured a live concert recording (not a studio performance) accompanied by my written reflections. I intentionally highlighted imperfections in the recordings, embracing the raw energy of live performance. The emails were sent at sunrise, arriving a few minutes earlier each day, reinforcing the feeling of a living, breathing project.

Initially planned as a two-week endeavor, Rising continued for 12 weeks. I later realized that writing these reflections was my only artistic outlet at the time—another way of storytelling. The process changed me. It magnified isolation but also deepened my empathy. In the end, it was another way of saying: “We are here, and this is what it feels like to be here.”

NS: Looking ahead, what upcoming projects are you most excited about, and how do they reflect the evolution of The Crossing? 

DN: That’s hard to answer—I like them all! But maybe I’ll focus on the most immediate. Gavin Bryars is writing a third major work, and the second concert-length piece, in our long and deeply personal collaboration. The Last Days of Immanuel Kant premieres in June during our annual Month of Moderns series. We’re excited; we love how Gavin understands us and challenges us, always with a deep sense of what’s possible.

In the fall, we have a major new work from Nina Shekhar, our 2024–2025 Resident Composer—a “piano concerto” for us and Philadelphia pianist Dynasty Battles. Next summer, we present premieres by Nicole Lizée and Nathalie Joachim as part of Philadelphia’s celebration of USA at 250, including another premiere with the Philadelphia Orchestra, commissioned by The Mann Center.

Looking ahead to July 2026, our multi-year project with creative performer, author, and designer Suzanne Bocanegra is coming into focus. It will be premiered and filmed in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum. We’ll be spending almost the entire summer of 2026 working together daily, and I cannot wait.

NS: As an educator, you frequently engage with young choral musicians. What advice do you give to emerging conductors and singers looking to push the boundaries of choral music?

DN: I suppose part of the answer is hidden in your question:

• Don’t set out to push boundaries—just be yourself and tell the stories that mean the most to you.
• Make simple things with friends.
• Tell stories you know and care about.
• Respect the time of everyone in your life—the singer, the audience member, the colleague, the listener.
• Words matter. They have value. They are everything.