photo: Becky Oehlers Photography
Donald Nally collaborates with creative artists, leading orchestras, and art museums to make new works for choir that address social and environmental issues. He has commissioned nearly 200 works and, with his ensemble The Crossing (Musical America’s 2024 Ensemble of the Year), has produced 35 albums, winning three GRAMMY® Awards for Best Choral Performance, while nominated nine times.
Nally has held distinguished tenures as chorus master for Lyric Opera of Chicago, Welsh National Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and for many seasons at Il festival dei due mondi in Spoleto, Italy. He has prepared choruses for many internationally recognized conductors at the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra (London), American Composers Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Spoleto Festival Orchestra.
Nally has worked closely with the artists Allora & Calzadilla and composer David Lang on museum projects in London, Porto, Cordoba, Edmonton, Houston, Osaka, and Philadelphia. He has been visiting resident artist at the Park Avenue Armory and music director of The Mile Long Opera, Lang’s 1000-voice work on The High Line in Manhattan. His 72-chapter series Rising w/ The Crossing, a response to the 2020 pandemic, has been preserved by the National Archives of The Library of Congress as a cultural artifact.
Recent projects include the Swedish Radio Choir, Klockriketeatern at the Finnish National Opera, the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, the Big Ears Festival, the Haarlem KoorBiënnale, and various projects at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Donald is a frequent guest artist/teacher at universities, including Yale, Harvard, the University of Chicago, Indiana University, Notre Dame, Westminster Choir College, and Boston Conservatory.
Highlights of the 2024–2025 season include performances with The Crossing at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Drake University, McCarter Theater in Princeton, and Abendmusik in Lincoln; guest artist/teacher residencies at Boston University, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and the University of Iowa; and guest chorus master with the Chicago Symphony.
Nally is the John W. Beattie Chair of Music Emeritus at Northwestern University. He is Director of Choral Studies at Westminster Choir College of Rider University.
Contact: Chelsea Lyons: donaldnallyoffice@gmail.com
Albums
Meciendo
Release Date: October 25, 2024
Catalog Number: NV6675
Catalog Number: NV6675
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
The multi-GRAMMY® award winning ensemble The Crossing, led by Donald Nally, delivers an enthralling program of contemporary choral compositions with MECIENDO from Navona Records. New works from six composers unknown to one another and yet wondrously aligned; their music weaves together seamlessly, even mystically, into a meaningful story of spirituality and interconnectedness. Warmth and sparkle alternate effortlessly in the choral textures created by this renowned ensemble, enveloping listeners in a sound that travels from the closed arms of a loved one to the stars above. Available in stereo and Dolby Atmos immersive audio formats, MECIENDO blends the intimate and the profound in an awe-inducing performance.
Dashing Vol. 5
Release Date: November 15, 2024
Catalog Number: NV6671
Catalog Number: NV6671
21st Century
Holiday
Choir
Harp
Orchestra
On the hunt for a flurry of contemporary classical works to soundtrack your holiday season? Look no further than DASHING VOL. 5 from Navona Records. This installment of the series unwraps the spirited, uplifting, and grandiose qualities of classical holiday music, exploring new interpretations of mainstay melodies, sonic interpretations of snowfall, delicate carols, and more. Featuring an array of instrumental and vocal music from several lauded composers and performers, DASHING VOL. 5 serves as a cheerful reminder that music may be the greatest gift of all.
Ways You Went
Release Date: September 20, 2024
Catalog Number: NV6648
Catalog Number: NV6648
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
Organ
Saxophone
Recently named Musical America's 2024 Ensemble of the Year, Donald Nally's chamber choir The Crossing stuns with their latest studio album, WAYS YOU WENT. Vibrant, exhilarating, and uplifting, this new release features original compositions by composers Martin Bresnick and Mason Bates.
WAYS YOU WENT is a yin and yang of interconnected opposites. Bresnick's song cycle Self-Portraits 1964 exclusively deals with the life and personality of a single man: young and intellectual, working as a trash collector to put himself through college, and escaping into literature at night. Bates' trilogy Mass Transmission takes a telegraph conversation between mother and daughter in the 1920s and sets it to music, contrasting the warmth of human communication and a mechanistic medium. Both of these cycles, one introspective, the other socially oriented, are snapshots of a time gone by. The Crossing brings both to life with perfect mastery.
Ochre
Release Date: July 12, 2024
Catalog Number: NV6643
Catalog Number: NV6643
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
Displaying their characteristic, fearless virtuosity, multiple-GRAMMY®-winning ensemble The Crossing offers a new album born of cultural resonance, with new works by three of the most creative composers working today. The performances on OCHRE are both rigorous and supple, moving from the intriguing, foggy textures of George Lewis to Caroline Shaw’s primarily wordless, quiet contemplation of the Earth, to Ayanna Woods’ inspired determination to live in a better world.
This is The Crossing’s 13th release on Navona Records, and it is a special one. Topical, timely, and forward-looking, these performances of the 24-voice ensemble led by conductor Donald Nally demonstrate why Gramophone recently observed the group's ability to “sustain long lines, clarify layers of dense counterpoint and pinpoint the expressive intent of every detail, however minute or cataclysmic."
Motion Studies
Release Date: April 5, 2024
Catalog Number: NV6614
Catalog Number: NV6614
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
Saxophone
The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally, returns to Navona Records with MOTION STUDIES, performing works by commissioned artist Justine Chen’s Shallow Breath and Stealth and commissioned artist Nicholas Cline’s watershed. Reflecting on a culture where data mining and government traceability have become normalized to the point of population complacency, Chen encapsulates the dissecting points of poet Jena Osman’s musings on the 21st-century reframing of paranoia, privacy, and the pervasive desire to run away from the data that follows us.
Evidence of these reflections is present in the tittering, whispering, and often frantic conveyances of the ensemble in an unnerving collection of sequences that paint an antagonistic image of the modern machine. watershed designates motion as boundary rather than as escape: the movement of water as a crux point of political power and community resource. Joined by Matthew Levy on tenor sax, the ensemble ebbs with lap and flow as the American history of water is sung and dictated, leading the question of the damage nationalistic attitudes towards shared water resources have caused to our environment.
A 2024 Best Choral Performance GRAMMY® nominee and multi-GRAMMY® winning ensemble, The Crossing continually proves itself to be at the forefront of new choral literature and performance. MOTION STUDIES is a release not to be missed.
Titration
Release Date: April 28, 2023
Catalog Number: NV6504
Catalog Number: NV6504
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
TITRATION: a term used in chemistry to describe the process where two reagents are mixed drop by drop to avoid the explosive reaction that would occur from pouring them together quickly. Titration is also used to describe a therapeutic process in which one approaches trauma very slowly, “drop by drop,” so as to avoid unnecessary distress, flooding and potential re-traumatization. No title could be better fitting for Shara Nova’s new cycle of healing songs, recorded by The Crossing with conductor Donald Nally. TITRATION examines the experience of our own bodies, the capacity of our nervous systems, and the quest to identify and embrace our most difficult feelings. Styles converge, warm sounds emerge and voices soar next to laughter, humming, and the energy of Shara’s Indie band roots, with songs deeply inspired by Resmaa Menakem’s Somatic Abolitionist body of work and his call for communal practice. TITRATION offers a glimpse into various healing modalities while extending a hand of self-awareness to listeners alike.
Born
Release Date: August 12, 2022
Catalog Number: NV6449
Catalog Number: NV6449
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
Contemporary music needn’t sacrifice order and aesthetic appeal, even when it deals with complex issues. A glowing example of this is BORN: THE MUSIC OF EDIE HILL AND MICHAEL GILBERTSON, with conductor Donald Nally leading GRAMMY-winning professional chamber choir The Crossing on a breathtakingly beautiful expedition into themes of extinctions, relationships and their complexities, loss, and love.
Words Adorned
Release Date: July 9, 2021
Catalog Number: NV6356
Catalog Number: NV6356
21st Century
Vocal Music
Voice
The Grammy-winning professional chamber choir The Crossing, Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, and Navona Records present WORDS ADORNED. Conducted by Donald Nally, with Takht musical direction by Hanna Khoury, the combined forces interpret lush scores from Kinan Abou-afach and Kareem Roustom; the music is at times driven and passionate, at others mystical and lyrical, responding to ancient Andalusian poetry in the Muwashshah tradition. The takht – masterfully handling the oud, qanun, violin, cello, and percussion – guides the kaleidoscopic sounds and colors in these poems of love, revelry, and war, with additional solo work by the virtuosic singer Dalal Abu Amneh. True to their commitment to honor tradition while constantly blazing new ground, The Crossing’s latest offering is steeped in history, deeply relevant to modern listeners, and bridges cultures seamlessly.
A Native Hill
Release Date: April 9, 2021
Catalog Number: NV6347
Catalog Number: NV6347
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
Navona Records presents A NATIVE HILL from Philadelphia’s professional chamber choir, The Crossing. This monumental unaccompanied work is the result of a collaboration with composer Gavin Bryars, whose previous work for The Crossing won them their first of two recent Grammy awards. With intimate knowledge of the individual voices and art of each singer, Bryars composed A NATIVE HILL to capitalize on the group’s unique sound, personality, and esprit de corps.
The Tower and the Garden
Release Date: February 12, 2021
Catalog Number: NV6303
Catalog Number: NV6303
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
On THE TOWER AND THE GARDEN, the multi-GRAMMY winning choir The Crossing and conductor Donald Nally ponder the fragility of the earth, the awe of nature, and the power of language to unite, or divide, society.
Carthage
Release Date: May 22, 2020
Catalog Number: NV6287
Catalog Number: NV6287
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
GRAMMY-winning chamber choir The Crossing is back with their latest installment in a multi-album series with Navona Records. CARTHAGE comes on the heels of the 2020 GRAMMY-nominated album THE ARC IN THE SKY, released last summer. In this latest offering, artistic director Donald Nally leads the choir through six striking pieces by composer James Primosch that confront the most elemental questions of Western philosophy.
The Arc in the Sky
Release Date: July 12, 2019
Catalog Number: NV6240
Catalog Number: NV6240
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
Multiple Grammy Award-winning chamber choir The Crossing moves listeners with their new release THE ARC IN THE SKY, a breathtaking performance of the eponymous work by accomplished choral composer Kile Smith. Based on texts by Robert Lax (1915–2000), it constitutes an American pilgrimage into spirituality.
Evolutionary Spirits
Release Date: June 28, 2019
Catalog Number: NV6218
Catalog Number: NV6218
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
EVOLUTIONARY SPIRITS brings together the artistry of Grammy Award-winning chamber choir The Crossing with innovative works of six contemporary composers. Ranging from songs of praise from the Biblical era to present day, and from contemporary poetry to the reimagining of a Shakespearean sonnet, EVOLUTIONARY SPIRITS explores humanity in all its facets.
Clay Jug
Release Date: February 10, 2017
Catalog Number: NV6073
Catalog Number: NV6073
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
The choral music of Minnesota-based composer Edie Hill shines on CLAY JUG, a compendium of large and small works for a cappella choir and choir accompanied by chamber ensemble. Though the works featured on CLAY JUG vary in scope, they all demonstrate Hill’s keen sensitivity to ensemble texture and harmonic density, as well as the incorporation of text across four languages.
Moonstrung Air
Release Date: February 10, 2015
Catalog Number: NV5989
Catalog Number: NV5989
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
The human voice: A forceful yet delicate instrument. The weight of its expression can be as heavy as a ringing bell or as light as the whisper of an autumn breeze. Composer Gregory W. Brown presents a collection of his vocal and choral works on the Navona Records release MOONSTRUNG AIR, capturing the wonder of the human voice as our rooted connection with nature.
It Is Time
Release Date: March 1, 2011
Catalog Number: NV5845
Catalog Number: NV5845
21st Century
Vocal Music
Choir
IT IS TIME features the compositions of David Shapiro, Kile Smith, Paul Fowler, Frank Havroy, Erhard Karkoschka and Kristen Broberg based on the German-language poetry of Romanian poet Paul Celan. Celan's words are largely open to interpretation and lend themselves to musical adaptations; the composers on this disc adapt the words well, and vocal ensemble The Crossing, under conductor Donald Nally, performs them beautifully.
Fine Music, Vol. 1
Release Date: February 1, 2011
Catalog Number: NV5841
Catalog Number: NV5841
21st Century
Orchestral
Solo Instrumental
Choir
Clarinet
String Orchestra
Navona's FINE MUSIC, VOLUME 1 is the first in a series of fine selections from Navona Records. This digital release features Grammy-winner Richard Stoltzman, Pulitzer Prize-winner Lewis Spratlan, Pixar/Randy Newman orchestrator Jonathan Sacks, and New York Philharmonic concertmaster Glenn Dicterow. This collection both highlights some of Navona's choicest tracks and offers a preview of things to come.
Vespers
Release Date: April 1, 2009
Catalog Number: NV5809
Catalog Number: NV5809
Renaissance
Chamber
Liturgical
Vocal Music
Choir
Chicago's best-known early music ensemble The Newberry Consort exhilarates with VESPERS, a collection of dazzlingly original music for women’s voices. The composer? A mysterious early-17th-century Mexican named Juan de Lienas, whose style energetically oscillates between Renaissance and Baroque elements.
