Grammy Award-winning ensemble The Crossing Choir will make the world premiere of  Caroline Shaw’s “Ochre” at its annual Crossing @ Christmas concert.

Donald Nally will conduct Shaw’s new work and Mason Bates’s “Mass Transmission” for organ and electronics. Scott Dettra joins on the organ.

In The Crossing tradition, these holiday concerts explore relationships, humanity, sorrow, treatment of the earth, and overall hope.

In a press statement, Shaw said, “Ochre obliquely references how we consider and care for the ground beneath our feet. Our Earth, ourselves, our histories, our sense of the scale of our lives in the context of geological history.”

“Mass Transmission” explores how radio technology brought humanity closer together, yet magnified our distances and loneliness. The piece draws on 1920s radio communication between parents in the Netherlands and their children in Java, who were sent there to work for the Dutch government.

The performances will take place on Dec. 16 at 7:00 p.m. at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Rittenhouse Square (co-presented by Penn Live Arts) and on Dec. 18 at 5:00 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill.