An excited audience of music lovers packed the main sanctuary of the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill earlier this month for the stunning world premiere of Gavin Bryars’ “The Last Days of Immanuel Kant.” Performed by The Crossing choir and conducted by Donald Nally, the concert marked the close of the ensemble’s 2024-2025 season. 

The Bryars composition is an unaccompanied choral masterpiece that seems to have picked up directly from medieval Gregorian chant to incorporate a seamless flow of transmodal harmony. The sound opens up an aural portal into Heaven itself.

Divided into nine movements that encompass the various stages of old age with a text by Thomas De Quincey, the score flows without discernible interruption from one step to the next. It offers a revelation at the unavoidable end of it all that is so sensitive and inspired it transcends the occasionally banal character of its text.

Bryars’ harmonic language sounded free of tonal constraints as it negotiated its way, via immaculate polyphony, through all the emotions we and our loved ones experience as the years take their inevitable toll on our bodies and minds — but, somehow, not our spirits.

Need I mention that Nally and The Crossing gave the score a technically laser-focused yet emotionally explosive interpretation that thrilled its audience, which in turn gave the composer (who was in attendance) a rousing standing ovation.

The Crossing’s next season

Never an ensemble to allow the grass to grow beneath its institutional feet, Nally and his all-professional choir of vocalists devoted to promoting new choral music recently announced their 2025-26 season. Dubbed “On being numerous,” it boasts nine different concert programs jam-packed with premieres: local, national, and world.

The new season opens Saturday, Oct. 18, 7 p.m., in the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, and Sunday, Oct. 19, 3 p.m., in the First Presbyterian Church in Germantown. The program features the world premiere of Nina Shekhar’s “Tic-Talk.” The program also includes Kyle Smith’s “Let All the Strains of Joy (mingle in my last song,),” a gift to the choir.

Next on the roster is “Self-Evident,” which boasts the world premiere of Christopher Cerrone’s “Of being numerous” plus Caroline Shaw’s “Ochre,” a reprise from 2022. The performance is Friday, Nov. 21, 7 p.m. in Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church.

The annual Jeffrey Dinsmore Memorial Concerts are set for Friday, Dec. 19, 7 p.m., at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 1625 Locust St. in Center City, and Sunday, Dec. 21, 5 p.m., at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church. The program, in memory of Dinsmore, a co-founder of the choir who died in 2014, includes the world premiere of Sarah Rimkus’ “Nativity” and Ukrainian composer Natalia Tsupryk’s “Kyiv.”

Nally, of Germantown, and The Crossing will venture north to Boston to join the Boston Symphony Jan. 29 and 31 to perform an abridged version of David Lang’s “poor hymnal.” Then the choir heads west to Stanford University, Feb. 25, for works by Harold Meltzer, Eriks Esenvalds and Sarah Rimkus.

The ensemble returns to Pennsylvania for Tania Leon’s “Singsong” and Wang Lu’s “At Which Point,” Sunday, March 21, 5 p.m., at Hershey’s Derry Presbyterian Church; Sunday, March 22, 4 p.m., at the Episcopal Church of St. Luke and the Epiphany in Center City, and Tuesday, March 24, 7:30 p.m. at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Chestnut Hill residents get to hear the choir on The Hill Sunday, June 7, 5 p.m., at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill in a program entitled “The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” The Crossing will perform Peter Boyer’s “A Hundred Years On” with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Wednesday, June 17, 8 p.m., and will close out its 2025-26 season with “Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness,” Sunday, June 28, 5 p.m. at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church.

For more information visit crossingchoir.org.

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