The Crossing Votes: 2020 features new Echoes amplification kits, which were introduced at acclaimed sold-out performances in the world premiere of The Forest earlier this month. Echoes features individual pillar speakers that allow singers to sing together, outside, and safely socially distant. In the Ayanna Woods premiere, singers stand 30 feet apart in a circle with a circumference of 720 feet and diameter of 230 feet, the speakers gathered as a separate group in the center. In the Maggio premiere, singers again stand 30 feet apart, now placed as a giant starburst behind the speakers, to mirror the blueprint of the The Crossing’s lay-out in conventional, non-COVID Times. The isolation of singing during the pandemic is ever-present, while the joy of finding this way to do so is clear. The Crossing’s Echoes system was sponsored by Thomas Kasdorf. 

All works of The Crossing Votes: 2020 were produced with social distancing; the Maggio and Woods outside, and the Lang and Cline recorded one-singer-at-time. The Maggio, Woods, and Cline were recorded and filmed at the farm of Libby Glatfelter in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The Lang was recorded at The Crossing’s home, the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

All the films were conceived and conducted by Donald Nally, with Paul Vazquez of Digital Mission Audio Services as audio producer, and music assistance from Kevin Vondrak and John Grecia. The films of Woods, Maggio, and Cline are by Four/Ten Media, Evan Chapman and Kevin Eikenberg, with assistance of Nick Hughes. Vote photos by Kevin Vondrak, additional photos by John C. Hawthorne.

stateless
David Lang

premiered Monday, October 26, 2020

A third pandemic collaboration between Lang and The Crossing – the English-language premiere of this setting of a 13th-century letter from Rabbi Moses ben Nachman to his children in Barcelona, written while exiled to Jerusalem; presented as a new film by Eric Southern, with art and titles by Steven Bradshaw and Nyahzul C. Blanco.

she took his hands
Nicholas Cline

premiered Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Cline sets the words of Emma Lazano, on the arrest of her friend, Chicago immigrant activist Elvira Arellano, as quoted in The Washington Post, August 21, 2007. A journalistic, yet empathetic account of immigration, faith, and motherhood.

Democracy (world premiere)
Robert Maggio

premiered Friday, October 30, 2020

Composer of The Crossing’s 2019 stage work, Aniara, Maggio returns with a new work, setting words of Franklin Roosevelt’s "Arsenal of Democracy" radio speech from December 1940. Determined, inspiring, and relentless, FDR insists that he would ask no one to defend a democracy that would not in turn defend everyone in the nation.  

Shift (world premiere)
Ayanna Woods

premiered Monday, November 2, 2020

Composer Ayanna Woods has written the words for this bold world premiere in which she contemplates the reimagining of our monuments. The work builds through layers to its climactic arrival, "bursting through the cracks in the story you tell, America."