The Crossing Performs SIN-EATER in October

Three-time Grammy Award-winning choir The Crossing, led by conductor Donald Nally, builds on its reputation as a leader in creating and producing new music with the world premiere of David T. Little’s SIN-EATER, co-commissioned by The Crossing and Penn Live Arts, on Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, October 15, 2023 at 3:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, presented by Penn Live Arts. The premiere performances mark the first collaboration between The Crossing and Bergamot Quartet, known for their adventurous programming and presentation, as well as their collaborative spirit

Donald Nally conducts and directs the new work described by Little as a “work of ritual music theatre exploring the nature of power in western civilization through its connection to eating and food.” The tale of the sin-eater derives from Celtic folklore in which a loaf of bread, placed on the corpse of a person of means to absorb their sins, would be eaten by a poor person who had agreed (or been paid) to take on those sins, guaranteeing the deceased passage to Heaven. Through the lens of this practice, SIN-EATER investigates whom we ask to sin or suffer for us today. The work draws connections across time, including texts by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Stephen Crane, Wilfred Owen, Harold McGee, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Jonathan Swift, Claude McKay, and others, using juxtaposition to reveal deeper meaning.

"SIN-EATER winds a path through the dark terrains of human experience,” Little said, “shining light on the power differentials we live with every day, so common we no longer see them; seeking a path through disinfecting sunlight toward a better way of being. Anthropological accounts of the historical practice of sin-eating frame modern reports of first responders, essential workers in medicine and food processing, morgue truck workers, women, soldiers, executioners, social media content moderators, and others; individuals whose jobs, or mere lives, expose them to dangerous or difficult conditions, requiring them to take on lasting trauma as they work to keep us safe, healthy, fed, or blissfully unaware of the dark forces always around us.”

This is The Crossing’s second collaboration with David T. Little (the 2016 world premiere performance of dress in magic amulets, dark, from My feet, as part of Seven Responses, being the first). Lighting Designer Eric Southern will also play a prominent role, framing the complex and compelling topic of Little’s SIN-EATER with light as a character in the drama. SIN-EATER will be recorded in-studio by The Crossing for future release.

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