- John Graham-Hall
- David Fielding
- Lera Auerbach
- Clarence Barlow
- dramaturg
- Ulvi Cemal Erkin
- Annika Schlicht
- Maggie Cole
The Last Days of Immanuel Kant
Donald Nally's professional chamber choir The Crossing gives the first performance of a new work by British composer Gavin Bryars
American professional chamber choir The Crossing, led by conductor Donald Nally and dedicated to new music, returns to Philadelphia, USA to give the first performance of a new work by British composer Gavin Bryars on Saturday 14 June 2025. The relationship between the Bryars and The Crossing is intimate, collaborative and productive. Over the course of many years, they have produced a major concert-length work on the writings of American novelist and environmental activist Wendell Berry and a substantial piece on words by British poet Thomas Traherne for saxophone quartet and choir, which won the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance.
Gavin Bryars (born 1943)
Now, Bryars has turned to the insightful, melancholy recollections of English writer Thomas De Quincy (1785-1859) as he describes the last days of German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), the philosopher whose thoughts inspired The Crossing's 2024-2025 season theme, 'Transcendental Idealists':
His style of conversation was popular in the highest degree and unscholastic; so much so, that any stranger who should have studied his works, and been unacquainted with his person, would have found it difficult to believe, that in this delightful companion he saw the profound author of the Transcendental Philosophy.
In Bryars' new concert-length work, which adds significantly to the contemporary choral canon, The Crossing returns to the topic of ageing and the observation of those who move gracefully from strength to memory loss to the inevitable:
The infirmities of age now began to steal upon Kant. One of the first signs was, that he began to repeat the same stories more than once on the same day ... A third sign of his decaying faculties was that he now lost all accurate measure of time. One minute, nay, without exaggeration, a much less space of time, stretched out in his apprehension of things to a wearisome duration.
Conductor Donald Nally, who talked to Classical Music Daily's Ona Jarmalavičiūtė in April 2021, says:
This is a story of our time, of Kant's time, of all time; a story, told, in De Quincy's words and Gavin's music, with hope and care, patience and love. A musical offering composed by an eighty-year-old man about an eighty-years-old man. It is a story that reminds us of our own ephemeral existence and celebrates that very aspect of our being.
The Last Days of Immanuel Kant will receive its first performance at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 7pm on Saturday 14 June 2025. Tickets at US$40 (general admission), US$30 (seniors) and US$20 (students) are available from crossingchoir.org
The Crossing, with Donald Nally (bottom-right)
Portions of The Last Days of Immanuel Kant will also be paired with Aaron Helgeson's The Book of Never, winner of a 2024 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, in a concert on Friday 20 June 2025, 7pm at St Peter's Church, 619 Lexington Avenue, New York City, USA. Tickets are US$40 for general admission, with a pay-as-you-can option. 100% of ticket proceeds will be donated to Safe Passage 4 Ukraine, helping to re-home those displaced by the ongoing war. Further information: crossingchoir.org
Posted 23 April 2025 by Keith Bramich
