For John Luther Adams, music is a lifelong search for home—an invitation to slow down, pay attention, and remember our place within the larger community of life on earth. Living for almost 40 years in northern Alaska, JLA discovered a unique musical world grounded in space, stillness, and elemental forces. In the 1970s and into the ’80s, he worked full time as an environmental activist. But the time came when he felt compelled to dedicate himself entirely to music. He made this choice with the belief that, ultimately, music can do more than politics to change the world. Since that time, he has become one of the most widely admired composers in the world, receiving the Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy Award, and many other honors. In works such as Become Ocean, In the White Silence, and Canticles of the Holy Wind, Adams brings the sense of wonder that we feel outdoors into the concert hall. And in outdoor works such as Inuksuit and Sila: The Breath of the World, he employs music as a way to reclaim our connections with place, wherever we may be. A deep concern for the state of the earth and the future of humanity drives Adams to continue composing. As he puts it: “If we can imagine a culture and a society in which we each feel more deeply responsible for our own place in the world, then we just may be able to bring that culture and that society into being.”

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.

After a musical childhood centered on classical piano, improvisation, and choir, Shawn Kirchner pursued an alternate path in college, majoring in Peace Studies, with folk music and foreign languages capturing his passion. Circling back to music as a career path — by way of grad school in choral conducting — he was also inspired to gain fluency as a pianist in many styles, resulting in a wide-ranging creative output once he began arranging and composing in earnest. His long association with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, first as a singer, then as a pianist, and ultimately as composer-in-residence, served as the catalyst that introduced his music to the wider choral world. Whether it’s a complex concert work, a folk setting, a jazz ballad, or a bluegrass song, Kirchner’s signature approach can be identified in intricately detailed instrumental writing and intuitively melodic vocal lines that inspire singers’ artistry and humanity.

Luke Wallace is a songwriter, speaker, choral arranger and environmental champion from the Coast Salish Territory known as Vancouver, Canada. For 10 years Luke has been touring, recording, fundraising and organizing for people and the planet. In 2023, Luke was a feature performer at the United Nations Water Conference, the first of its kind in a generation. Luke has performed hundreds of concerts all over North America and spends much of his time speaking in schools about hope in the face of climate change. Luke’s performance history include the Vancouver Folk Festival, Salmon Arm Roots and Blues, Vancouver Island Music Festival and multiple independent US tours.