ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

Jazz pianist/composer John Altenburgh was born and raised in Mosinee, WI; in 1989 he founded his own label, Altenburgh Jazz, and the following year issued his debut LP, (Old City). 1992's Vol. II further bolstered his growing reputation, and with the 1993 follow-up Generations Altenburgh earned his strongest reviews yet. Subsequent efforts include Heartland '95, 1996's Legends of Keelerville and 1999's Christmas at Buzz's Restaurant. ~ Jason Ankeny

The Crossing is an American choral ensemble, about 35 singers strong, that has gained unusually wide critical acclaim while specializing in contemporary music and bringing a broad variety of new music to the repertory via commissions. The group has commissioned a large variety of new works. Under the directorship of Donald Nally, The Crossing has been a prolific creator of new albums on labels oriented toward new music, including Innova, Cantaloupe, and Navona. On the latter, it issued the album Ochre in 2024.

The Crossing was founded in 2005 by a group of friends who included veteran choral director Donald Nally, who had served as artistic director of the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia and as chorus master of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. (A co-founder, Jeffrey Dinsmore, died suddenly during a rehearsal in 2014.) The new group quickly gained a reputation and held a residency at the 2007 Spoleto Festival in Italy. Since then, The Crossing has worked with ensembles as diverse as the American Composers Orchestra and The Rolling Stones (on a 2013 tour). They have appeared at New York's Lincoln Center (in the Mostly Mozart Festival), premiering a new work by John Luther Adams, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall. From 2009 to 2014, the choir operated a festival of its own, Month of Moderns. The Crossing has recorded for the contemporary music labels Navona, Innova, Albany, ECM, and Cantaloupe.

Perhaps the heart of The Crossing's activities has been its energetic commissioning of new music. The group has been responsible for more than 70 premieres of new works by a wide variety of composers, including international figures such as Latvia's Ä’riks EÅ¡envalds and Iceland's Anna Thorvaldsdottir as well as American composers of many styles and schools, including in addition to Gregory W. Brown and John Luther Adams, Gabriel Jackson, David Lang, David Shapiro, and Lewis Spratlan. The choir's musical qualities have won consistent praise in mainstream press organs as well as among connoisseurs of new music. In 2019, The Crossing, under Nally, released two albums, Voyages: Benjamin C.S. Boyle, Robert Convery, and Kile Smith: The Arc in the Sky, both of which earned Grammy nominations. The Crossing was featured on another Grammy-nominated album in 2019, joining the New York Philharmonic on Julia Wolfe's Fire in My Mouth. The choir retained its prolific ways during the COVID-19 pandemic despite the dangers associated with choral singing, issuing no fewer than 11 albums between 2020 and 2024 and scoring another Grammy Award in 2023 for the album Born. In 2024, The Crossing released the album Ochre on the Navona label; that album, too, received a Grammy nomination. ~ James Manheim