The Crossing choir, founded and directed by Germantown's Donald Nally and headquartered at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, has been awarded a $360,000 grant from The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage. The Center has specifically committed $60,000 of that sum as unrestricted general operating support.

The focus of that support is to support The Crossing in its creation of the new work "How to Survive." It was conceived and designed by the conceptual artist Suzanne Bocanegra in collaboration with Nally and the choir.

"How to Survive" will reflect Bocanegra's previous museum lectures, presented in choral form and captured on film in four movements. Each will have its own composer, video, sound and costuming. Composers include Shara Nova, Ayanna Woods and Hildur Guonadottir.

The grant will also enable The Crossing to take part in the Mann Center's "A Hundred Years On," collaborating with the Philadelphia Orchestra, composer Peter Boyer, and librettist Mark Campbell on a new work exploring the promise and troubles of the young American democracy and the tensions and inequities that still exist today.

For more information about The Crossing's 2024-25 season call 215-436-9276 or visit crossingchoir.org.

Piffaro on The Hill

Piffaro, the Renaissance Band, will open its local 2024-25 season of concerts with "Triomphi." There will be three performances: Oct. 11,12 & 13. The first will be played in the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Savior in University City at 7:30 p.m., the second in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill at 7:30 p.m., and the final at 3 p.m. in Christ Church Christiana Hundred in Wilmington.

Piffaro will be joined by TENET Vocal for a program of music that surveys music composed to the poetry of Petrarch, the most influential poet of the Italian Renaissance.

For more information call 215-235-8469 or visit piffaro.org.

Concert Wrap-Up

The final weekend of September provided me with my first opportunity of the new season to hear a concert given by the Philadelphia Orchestra in its newly renamed Marian Anderson Hall. Music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducted the Philadelphians in performances of Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Opus 19, with soloist Seong-Jin Cho, and Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major.

Nezet-Seguin made superb use of the recently enhanced resonance of Anderson Hall to present his audience Sunday afternoon with as full a spectrum of colors and dynamics that one could imagine and hope for. The brass choir played with stunning stentorian power. The woodwinds projected efficaciously and with impressive blend and balance. The strings, which got off to a slightly shaky start, regained their stride and played with glistening amplitude.

Although Beethoven's Piano Concerto in B-flat major is designated as his second, it was actually composed first – just published second. Its debts to those masterful piano concerti of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are everywhere to be heard, yet Beethoven never failed to inject his own spikey musical personality into even his earliest scores.

Playing on a splendid Hamburg Steinway & Sons concert grand piano, Seong-Jin Cho gave it a sterling interpretation. His single encore was the charming Rondo from Franz Joseph Haydn's Sonata in E minor, played with subtle elegance.

The Philadelphia Orchestra, guest conducted by Roderick Cox, will perform Martinu's "Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola & Orchestra" with Choong-Jin Chang as soloist, plus Bartok's Suite from "The Miraculous Mandarin" and Saint-Saens' "Organ" Symphony No. 3. The concerts are set for Friday & Sunday, Oct. 11 & 13, at 2 p.m.

Organ Recital

The long wait is finally over. St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Chestnut Hill, celebrated the return of its majestic pipe organ Friday evening, Sept. 27, with a festive recital performed by Cherry Rhodes. Music by Johann Sebastian Bach, William Grant Still, Jean Guillou, Clarence Mader, Louis Vierne and Max Reger gave Rhodes a plethora of opportunities to show off the newly restored, renovated and enhanced instrument's 109 voices, 128 ranks, 7,337 pipes, 24 digital voices and percussion for the 400-plus music-lovers in attendance.

Rhodes showcased the vast spectrum of colors and dynamics that the church's pipe organ can now project with clarity and consistency. Through an ironclad technique and interpretive imagination and even humor, her playing made clear that there's very little, indeed, that St. Paul's pipe organ can't do.

You can contact NOTEWORTHY at Michael-caruso@comcast.net.