The Crossing's Christmas Concerts to Spotlight World Premieres

Four-time Grammy Award-winning professional choir, The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally, will continue its 2025-2026 Season with three December concerts featuring the world premieres of resident composer Sarah Rimkus' Nativity and Ukrainian composer Natalia Tsupryk's Kyiv (choral version) with Tommy Mesa on cello.

The Crossing @ Christmas concerts take place on Friday, December 19 at 7pm at St. Mark's Church in Center City Philadelphia; Saturday, December 20 at 5pm at St Peter's Church in New York City; and Sunday, December 21 at 5pm at The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia.

The Crossing further ruminates on its season theme, “Of being numerous,” asking how does music at Christmas express our numerousness? A mother's contemplations on her child's destiny contrast with our desire for peace and our seeming inability to achieve it. Mary intuits her son's journey: birth, life, and sacrifice – like us, holding hope of a common fate of freedom. The Crossing introduces works of Ukrainian composer Natalia Tsupryk, including a world premiere of a choral transcription of her Kyiv. At the center of “The Crossing @ Christmas 2025” is the culminating work of 2024-2025 Resident Composer Sarah Rimkus' Nativity, featuring longtime collaborative cellist Tommy Mesa. These works that capture the “where we are” of this Christmas, stand next to works that reflect the focus of every Christmas; a newborn in a manger, a concerned mother, rocking him to sleep, in a stable. Joyful motets and sorrowful laments, asking the question, “What is nativity?”

Sarah Rimkus' residency and world premiere are supported by generous gifts from Peter and Judy Leone.

The  Dec. 20 performance anticipates The Crossing's next New York City concert at Carnegie Hall, on March 24, 2026.

About the artists
Sarah Rimkus is an award-winning American composer of choral, vocal and chamber works. She brings a wide range of influences to her music, from ars antiqua and ars nova polyphony to Balkan and Scandinavian folk traditions and many other sources. Her work often explores issues such as communication, belonging, and relationship to the environment through use musical layering and contradiction. Her music has been described as “challenging yet attractive” and “always powerful and well-judged,” with a language that “ranges from uncluttered lyrical poignancy to denser textures that suggest a holy clamor.”

Natalia Tsupryk's music is defined by a distinctive use of strings and vocals, her compositions draw from her classical performance background to combine elements of folk, electronica, and new-classical genres. A prolific writer, she has released several singles, EPs and albums since her debut LP, Choven in 2020. These include a collaboration with composer and pianist Angus MacRae on two EPs, Silent Fall (2021) and II (2022), and a composition for the vocal collective SANSARA, A Quiet Night - Tyhoyi Nochi (2022), released on Platoon. She is also a film and theatre composer. Her latest film score was The Kyiv Independent documentary, Can You Hear Me? The Invisible Battles of Ukrainian Military Medics (2024) directed by Francis Farrell and Olena Zashko.

Cuban American cellist Tommy Mesa has established himself as one of the most charismatic, innovative, and engaging cellists of his generation. The recipient of Lincoln Center's 2025 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Sphinx Organization's 2023 Medal of Excellence, its highest honor, he has appeared as soloist at the Supreme Court of the United States on four occasions and with major orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Indianapolis, Madison, New Jersey, San Antonio, and Santa Barbara, among others. Mesa gave the world premiere of Jessie Montgomery's cello concerto Divided in 2022 and has been the exclusive soloist since, performing at major halls across the United States and Brazil including Miami's New World Center, Nashville's Schermerhorn Center, and Carnegie Hall. His orchestral recording debut of the work was released in July 2023 on Deutsche Grammophon.