The Crossing Performs the World Premiere of David Lang's POOR HYMNAL in December

On Friday, December 15 and Sunday, December 17, The Crossing performs the world premiere of David Lang's poor hymnal. Performances take place at Iron Gate Theatre at Penn Live Arts (12/15 at 6pm and 8:30pm) and at The Crossing's home, The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill (12/17 at 5pm).

Co-commissioned by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, Jill and Loren Bough, and Peggy and Mark Curchack, the concert-length a cappella work considers the words of hymnals, which are woven into many varying religions as a catalog of ideals that worshipers agree upon—ideals such as how we treat and care for others, particularly those who are less fortunate. In poor hymnal, Lang poses the question: "Are the hymns we’re singing today truly reflective of a society that feels a responsibility to care for and support one another?”

Lang is a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and co-founder of trailblazing New York music organization Bang on a Can. Described as an "American master" by The New Yorker, Lang is one of the most performed composers in the United States, and has an extensive catalog of works that span opera, orchestra, chamber, and solo instrumentations.

poor hymnal is Lang's ninth piece composed specifically for The Crossing, in a partnership that extends more than a decade.  Previous collaborations include the Eugene Debs setting statement to the court (2010); i live in pain (2011), inspired by the works of Beatriz de Dia; lifespan (2014), which The Crossing performed more than 300 times in collaboration with Allora & Calzadilla at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fabric Museum and Workshop; make peace (2016), based on the last section of the Kaddish; the prescient protect yourself from infection (2019), commissioned by the Mutter Museum; in nature (2020), and the sense of senses (2021), with text after the Song of Songs.

Donald Nally has also been a close collaborator with David Lang outside of his work with The Crossing. In 2017, Nally produced Lang's piece for 1,000 singers crowd out at the Chicago Humanities Festival; he also prepared the choruses for Lang's stage works the mile long opera on New York's High Line and prisoner of the state at the New York Philharmonic.

Of poor hymnal, Lang writes:

"I am a big fan of hymn books. I have a small collection of old hymnals that I have picked up over the years—used and thumbed over and smudged by the generations of people who had turned their pages. What I love about hymnals is that they are a catalog of things a community of worshippers can agree on, a catalog that can be sung. And what the worshippers are singing about matters. The texts represent the beliefs and values that the worshippers all share, so hymnals have the power to highlight the hymns that make a particular community feel and act differently from all the others.  

"Many religions—mine included—profess that an important part of their belief is to care about how people who are comfortable should act towards people who are not. How we were strangers in a strange land, the least among us, the camel going through the eye of the needle, etc.  Of course, it is hard for us to remind ourselves to keep caring, and it would be so much easier to forget. With this in mind, I wondered 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. I wrote poor hymnal to find out."

This premiere takes place during an exciting year for The Crossing. Under the direction of conductor Donald Nally, they recently won their third Grammy Award (for the album Born) and ninth Grammy nomination (for Carols after a Plague), and were named 2024 Ensemble of the Year by Musical America—all while continuing to present and record an array of groundbreaking world premieres. Their 31st studio album, Sumptuous Planet, was released on New Focus Recordings on November 10, and features a spectacular new work by composer David Shapiro in the structure of a mass, celebrating the wonder of the world and universe through the writings of Richard Dawkins, one of the world's most famous evolutionary biologists. This past October, they presented the world premiere of David T. Little's SIN-EATER at Penn Live Arts with Bergamot Quartet. Their September project Crickets in Our Backyard featured world premiere commissions by Tania León (written for The Crossing and Claire Chase) and The Crossing's 2022-2023 Resident Composer Ayanna Woods, alongside the indoor premiere of Wang Lu's At Which Point, a 2021 Crossing commission. The concert, first presented in Philadelphia, toured to Yale and Harvard Universities, where The Crossing and conductor Donald Nally participated in masterclasses, performances, and recording sessions with student singers, composers, and conductors.