Donald Nally: Voice of Reason
Description
Donald Nally, conductor of the groundbreaking chamber choir, The Crossing, doesn’t just want audiences to listen—he wants them to think about real-world issues and events.
Featured Artists
Donald Nally is a celebrated conductor of choral music and opera. He is best known as the driving force behind The Crossing, a Grammy-winning choral ensemble committed to the creation and performance of new music.
Born in Philadelphia, Nally attended the University of Cincinnati, Westminster Choir College, and the University of Illinois. He was artistic director of the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia from 1998 to 1998, then choral master of the Welsh National Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera Philadelphia, and the Spoleto Festival. He has also conducted the Latvian State Choir, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra, among other companies.
Nally founded The Crossing in 2005. They have recorded over twenty albums, performed over seventy world premieres, and won Grammy Awards in 2018 and 2019 for Best Choral Performance. He is a professor of music and director of choral organizations at Northwestern University.
Transcript
Donald Nally believes his most important function as a conductor is not musical, it’s creating the conditions for human connections. And he’s gotten to be really good at it. His 30-plus years leading choral ensembles has included stints as chorus master at Welsh National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Opera Philadelphia. But his greatest achievement is The Crossing, the 45-member choir dedicated to the creation and performance of new music, which he co-founded in 2005. To date The Crossing has recorded 15 albums, two of them Grammy winners, and premiered more than 70 new works. In all, Donald Nally has added a great deal of music to the world. But as much as he revels in sound, he also yearns for its opposite.
Donald Nally: We crave a level of silence that we don’t even know we crave. And I work for that in our music making, to create an environment in which silence is invited and allowed to be, because the ubiquity of music is crushing, it’s defeating, it’s demoralizing.
The Crossing is known for tackling far-reaching social issues, including immigration, climate change, nuclear threat. Take their 2014 premiere of award-winning English composer Gabriel Jackson’s Rigwreck, a reflection on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster that dumped more than 200 gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. For the past few years, Nally says all his efforts, from commissioning new works through performing them, have revolved around the idea of the voice as a metaphor for power. His perpetual question is simple: who has the voice, and how are they using it?
Nally: When we talk about Deepwater Horizon the intention, through the careful placement of words, the careful choice of poet and composer, and the way in which we approach the presentation of it is not to say, “Oil in the Gulf of Mexico is bad!” Because we all know that, right? That’s just affirming people’s morals. I don’t wanna. I wanna do the opposite, right. I wanna challenge people’s ethics. And I don’t wanna do that through education. I don’t wanna do that through, like in-your-face, some kind of whatever. I wanna do it through incredibly thoughtful, often beautiful, sometimes harsh, because we are sometimes harsh, music that invites us to think about the world that we live in, through a composer’s voice, through that voice. Because that person has the voice. And they take really seriously how they use it.
And sometimes the work Nally commissions comment on the way those with real power use their voices.
Clip of Donald Trump speaking: “But we’re taking people out of the country, you wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people, these are animals.”
(The Crossing singing Ted Hearne’s “Animals”)
These aren’t people
These are animals
These aren’t people
These are animals
These aren’t people
These are animals
These aren’t people
These are animals
Choral music has never been mass entertainment, and new music will always be a tough sell. But despite this The Crossing has found its place in the culture, with Nally at the helm.
Robert Eisentrout: He knows what he wants, he knows how to get it, he does so with grace, generosity, collaboration. He’s a deep thinker and a deep soul.
Daniel Spratlan: There’re certain people that have personalities a certain energy that you bond to, and that you look to and you say, “I wanna do what he’s doing.” And so, you trust that like, okay, you have a vision and it’s really clear and we all wanna reach that goal with you, we wanna find that vision together.
Nally: If you choose to be a leader of people, you have to accept the fact that you’re gonna get it wrong every day. And that’s tough. And I think when you’re younger when someone comes to you with the, “You didn’t get this right,” your instinct is to go like, “But you’re just wrong,” right? Or, “I’m doing the best I can.” And life, you know, life beats us up pretty well and luckily if you’re listening to it you really do learn a lot from it. So, one of the things that I’ve learned is that listening is much more important than speaking.
And in that listening Donald Nally continues to find and create profound opportunities for human connection.
