Autumn @ The Crossing

and a concert recommendation from our friends
Piffaro & Variant 6
Summer was spent in fields and forests, hauling our Echoes
up mountainsides and into recording studios.
Now, we reflect on a joyful return to in-person, indoor singing. 
We Returned. We Emerged. 
The Chestnut Hill Local says, we "shook the rafters!" 
of our home The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill. 
(Yes, rafters were shaken.
Yes, tears were shed.
Yes, it was moving just to be in a room together.)
Connections and reconnections were made.
Thank you, sold-out crowd of friends, for our September 11 return:
a true homecoming.
Above link: final "Returning" rehearsal, with Scott Dettra at the organ. 

Autumn has arrived and we are set to reap the fruits of Summer labor. 
Forthcoming? 
Films of our summer concerts, 
WRTI broadcasts, 
and long-awaited commissions to finally premiere. 
(This feels so “normal” to write!)
Yes, we feel renewed by all the the innovations we discovered during the pandemic.
Yes, we find comfort in getting back to some familiar ways.
Concerts!
 
So, here’s the routine.
(though the word seems a paradox: in new music, the routine is no routine!)
Ticket time for our next concert:
November 21 – just six weeks away – bringing some of these works to life 
for the first time 
in a concert we call
MOTION STUDIES.
 
World premieres of 
Justine F. Chen's Shallow Breath and Stealth 
Gabriel Kahane's Choral Music,
and the East Coast premiere of 
Nicholas Cline's Watersheds 
joined by saxophone legend Matt Levy. 
A concert digging deep into 21st-century American life, from the ubiquity of surveillance to the flow of water past political boundaries. 
Save the date! 
Jena Osman reads from Motion Studies,
the book became the libretto for Justine F. Chen's Shallow Breath and Stealth.
Thursday, November 18th @ 7pm 
Stotesbury Mansion 
Center City Philadelphia. 
Free with Reservations
Announcement and RSVP coming soon!

A New Sun Rises
a concert with Piffaro, Variant 6 and the world premiere of a new work by composer Kile Smith

In Person
 Oct 8 @ 7:30PM – Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral
 Oct 9 @ 7:30PM – Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
 Oct 10 @ 3:00PM – Ss Andrew & Matthew Church, Wilmington

Online October 16-26
We invite you to join us in celebrating the return of live music as we highlight a concert from our friends. Piffaro, Philadelphia's Renaissance Band, sails forth into a new season, accompanied by the six singers of Variant 6: Steven Bradshaw, Daniel Schwartz, Elisa Sutherland, James Reese, Rebecca Myers, and Jessica Beebe. The concert features a wide-ranging program, ranging from 16th c. settings of A solis ortus cardine (From the point of the rising sun) to a luminous new setting of Ave maris stella (Hail, star of the sea) by composer Kile Smith, whose Vespers was recorded by The Crossing & Piffaro in 2008 ("a spectacular work...sparkling beauty" Gramophone Magazine). This is music to light our way through darkness and rough waters to a new day and safe shores.
Header Photograph: The Crossing @ The Woodlands, June 2021 (credit: John C. Hawthorne)
New music only happens through your support.