People of The Crossing

 THE CHOIR

Walter Aldrich, Carl Alexander, Isobel Anthony, Katy Avery, Nathaniel Barnett, Jessica Beebe, Steven Berlanga, Kelly Ann Bixby, Karen Blanchard, Steven Bradshaw, Danielle Buonaiuto, Aryssa Burrs, Abigail Chapman, Matt Cramer, Tomás Cruz, Colin Dill, Micah Dingler, Ryan Fleming, Joanna Gates, Dimitri German, Sam Grosby, Michaël Hudetz, Steven Hyder, Michael Jones, Lauren Kelly, Anika Kildegaard, Henry Koch, Fran Daniel Laucerica, Kim Leeds, Chelsea Lyons, Andrew Major, Victoria Marshall, Jenna Hernandez McLean, Elijah McCormack, Frank Mitchell, Maren Montalbano, Rebecca Myers, Daniel O'Dea, Benjamin Perri, Jack Reeder, James Reese, Daniel Schwartz, Thann Scoggin, Rebecca Siler, Julie Snyder, Tiana Sorenson, Daniel Spratlan, Elisa Sutherland, Daniel Taylor, Jason Weisinger, Jackson Williams, Shari Alise Wilson

Donald Nally - Conductor

Donald Nally is responsible for imagining, programming, commissioning, and conducting at The Crossing. He collaborates with creative artists, leading orchestras, and art museums to make new works for choir that address social and environmental issues. He has commissioned over 180 works and, with The Crossing, has produced thirty recordings, winning three Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance, while nominated eight times. He has held distinguished tenures as chorus master for Lyric Opera of Chicago, Welsh National Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and for many seasons at Il festival dei due mondi in Spoleto, Italy. He has worked closely with the artists Allora & Calzadilla and composer David Lang on museum projects in London, Porto, Cordoba, Edmonton, Houston, Osaka, and Philadelphia. He has been visiting resident artist at the Park Avenue Armory; music director of The Mile Long Opera, David Lang’s 1000-voice work on The High Line in Manhattan; and chorus master for works of Lang, Julia Wolfe, John Luther Adams and Louis Andriessen for the LA Philharmonic, NY Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. His sixty-chapter series Rising w/ The Crossing, a response to the 2020 pandemic, has been archived by The Library of Congress as a cultural artifact. Recent projects include the Swedish Radio Choir, Klockriketeatern at the Finnish National Opera, the Baltic Sea Festival, the Big Ears Festival, Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW, Carnegie Hall, and the Haarlem Koorbiënnale. Donald is a frequent guest artist/teacher at universities, including Yale, Harvard, the University of Chicago, Chicago, Indiana, Notre Dame, and Boston Conservatory. He is the John W. Beattie Chair of Music Emeritus at Northwestern University.

For more information, please contact Chelsea Lyons: donaldnallyoffice@gmail.com

Kevin Vondrak - Assisant Conductor & Artistic Associate

Kevin Vondrak is responsible for artistic planning, production, and brand at The Crossing, where he is assistant conductor & artistic associate. As a recording producer with Donald Nally and Paul Vazquez, he won the 2023 Grammy Award, Best Choral Performance for The Crossing’s album Born, and has worked as producer and assistant conductor on five Grammy-nominated Crossing albums. He plays a key role in preparing The Crossing’s productions at home and on the road, including international tours of Aniara to the Haarlem Choral Biennale (Netherlands), Finnish National Opera (Helsinki), Berwaldhallen (Stockholm), an annual residency at Big Sky Choral Initiative (Montana), and The Crossing’s New York Philharmonic debut in Fire in my mouth, in which he conducted a preview performance at the Tenement Museum and served as auxiliary conductor at David Geffen Hall under Jaap van Zweden.. His creative voice can be heard directly in The Forest, co-composed with Donald Nally for The Crossing’s first public performance in the COVID-era and featuring Echoes amplification. For The Crossing’s Knee Plays, he created original arrangements of David Byrne’s music for a staged production at the Annenberg Center. In addition to his artistic and production work, Kevin curates the unique brand and voice of The Crossing in marketing, social media, and web. Recently, Kevin served as assistant music director of David Lang’s the mile-long opera on The High Line in NYC, where he led rehearsals with 38 choirs as part of an extensive community engagement initiative. He holds an MM in Choral Conducting from Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, and his original arrangement of the university alma mater is featured in a 2020 global PSA during nationally televised football broadcasts on ESPN and ABC.

You can reach Kevin at kevin@crossingchoir.org

Shannon McMahon - Operations Manager

Shannon is a 2006 graduate of Drexel University’s Music Industry program where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Music Industry / min: Business Administration. Over the last 15 years she has held a variety of positions in Office Management, Bookkeeping, and Non-profit Operations, Development, and Marketing at organizations including Ropeadope Records, Rittenhouse String Quartet and Ensembles, Philomel Baroque Orchestra, Please Touch Museum, and New Horizons Senior Center. In addition, she has consulted for a variety of small businesses and non-profits including Piffaro, the Renaissance Band, The One Eyed Turtle, Germantown Friends School, and Healing with Hearts and Horses Therapy Practice. In her spare time Shannon loves to travel, read, and is an aspiring metalsmith. Her love of travel and culture has also led her to become a Local Coordinator with Academic Year in America, a program of the American Institute of Foreign Study Foundation, where she recruits volunteer host families, supervises teenage exchange students from over 45 different countries, and strives to create a community that breaks down stereotypes and cultural barriers. Shannon lives in the best city in America (Philadelphia) with her husband and her Siamese cat Indiana Jones. 

You can reach Shannon at shannon@crossingchoir.org

John Grecia - Keyboards, Accompanist

John Grecia is responsible for holding it all together musically at The Crossing. Our accompanist since 2007, he has an active career as a pianist, organist, conductor and educator. He has served as director of music at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Ardmore, PA since January 2000. He also works as a collaborative pianist within the music departments of Saint Joseph’s University, West Chester University, and Overbrook School for the Blind. On the other side of the musical coin, John is a professional pianist, vocalist, songwriter, and frequent performer working in the Philadelphia pop/rock music scene. A debut album of original music entitled Thirteen (John Grecia Band) was released in October 2011. John maintains a busy performing schedule, playing hundreds of shows/performing engagements each year. He holds a B.S. in Music Education and a M.M. in Choral Conducting from West Chester University.

Paul Vazquez - Audio Engineer, Producer, & Sound Design

Paul Vazquez is responsible for all things audio production from sessions, concert recording, sound design or live sound needs for pieces such as The Crossing’s “The Forest”.  Always passionate about sound, he founded Digital Mission Audio Services to address the unique needs of the classical community which has since developed into his years-long collaboration with The Crossing.  Paul’s work can be heard on WYNC, WRTI concert broadcasts of The Crossing, as well as many of their notable CD releases including Grammy winners The Fifth Century and Zealot Canticles. A native of Long Island, NY, Paul now resides in Madison NJ with his wife Jennifer and children Emma and Christopher.

Paul on SoundBetter

Scott Dettra - Organist

Scott Dettra is acclaimed as one of America’s outstanding organ virtuosos. Mr. Dettra’s playing is known for its poetry, rhythmic intensity, and musical elegance, and has been described by The American Organist as “music making of absolute authority and sophisticated expression.” He combines an active performance schedule with his position on the organ faculty of Southern Methodist University. A native of New Castle, Delaware, Mr. Dettra holds two degrees from Westminster Choir College, where he was a student of Joan Lippincott, and has studied organ and jazz piano at Manhattan School of Music. 

www.scottdettra.com

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Timothy V. Blair
Tyler Carrigan - Vice President
Phil Cooke Treasurer
Mallory Dennis
Micah Dingler
Shawn Felton - Secretary
Mary D. Hangley
Cynthia A. Jarvis - President
Lauren Kelly
Mary Kinder Loiselle
Michael M. Meloy
Donald Nally - Conductor
Andrew Quint
Carol Loeb Shloss
Daniel Taylor