PROVOCATIVE THOUGHTS: 
The late Patric Standford may have written these short pieces deliberately to provoke our feedback. If so, his success is reflected in the rich range of readers' comments appearing at the foot of most of the pages.
Poor Hymnal
Donald Nally and The Crossing release their thirty-sixth album - David Lang's 'Poor Hymnal'
Professional American chamber choir The Crossing, led by conductor Donald Nally and dedicated to new music, released its thirty-sixth album in December 2024 - a new recording of David Lang's Poor Hymnal. Released by Cantaloupe Music, the work was recorded with the composer present at the time of its first performance in December 2023 at Articulate Studios in Bloomsbury, New Jersey. Poor Hymnal was co-commissioned for The Crossing and Donald Nally by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, Jill and Loren Bough, and Peggy and Mark Curchack. The first performance and recording of Poor Hymnal were made possible through the generous support of Carol Westfall.
David Lang: Poor Hymnal. The Crossing / Donald Nally. © 2024 Cantaloupe Music
First performed in December 2023 in Philadelphia, in what critic David Patrick Stearns called 'music that doesn't pull punches but leads listeners inward to the humanitarian core that's there but not always accessed', this concert-length work immediately entered The Crossing's canon.
The Crossing in the snow
New York-based David Lang is one of the USA's most highly esteemed and in-demand composers. A co-founder of the Bang on a Can collective, Lang's work has been performed at concert halls and theatres around the world, including numerous times at Lincoln Center. In Poor Hymnal, Lang wonders 'if the hymns of a community that did not want to forget our responsibilities to each other, and that wanted to make our responsibilities to each other the central tenet of our coming together, might be different from the hymns that we are singing now'. Poor Hymnal tries to get to the core of what a religious experience can be.
David Lang. Photo © 2008 Peter Serling
In November, The Crossing received its tenth nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance, for its album Ochre, featuring the music of Ayanna Woods, George Lewis and Caroline Shaw. The nomination puts Donald Nally and The Crossing in a singular category, now holding the record for the most consecutive years of nominations, previously held by American choral legend Robert Shaw. This is the ninth consecutive year the ensemble has been nominated.
Donald Nally. Photo © Charles Grove
The Poor Hymnal tour, which began in December 2024, continues in February 2025, with performances at Princeton University's Richardson Auditorium on Tuesday 4 February at 7:30pm; at the University of Iowa's Voxman Music Building in Iowa City on Thursday 13 February at 7:30pm, as part of a residency with David Lang; at Drake University's Sheslow Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday 14 February at 7:30pm; and at First Plymouth Congregational Church in Lincoln, Nebraska on Sunday 16 February 2025 at 4pm.
Posted 23 December 2024 by Keith Bramich
