The Crossing, led by conductor Donald Nally, is set to open its new season with “Crickets in our Backyard.”

The concert will take place on Sept. 16, 2023, at The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill.

The concert will feature the world premiere of Tania León’s “Singsong,” based on the US Poet Laureate Rita Dove’s cricket poems and featuring renowned flutist and MacArthur Fellow Claire Chase, a frequent collaborator with conductor Donald Nally.

The work will be performed alongside Wang Lu’s “At Which Point” and the world premiere of Ayanna Woods’ “Infinite Body.”

The program will also be performed on Sept. 18 at the Battell Chapel as part of the choir’s residency at Yale University, and then at Paine Hall on Sept. 21, 2023,  as part of the choir’s residency at Harvard University.

Speaking about the project, Donald Nally said, “Claire, Tania, Ayanna, Lu. This is an unbelievable dream come true—a gathering of some of the greatest and most innovative artistic minds of our culture. The singers of The Crossing and I are in awe of these new works, each completely different in style, scope, and content from the other, yet coming together to form a larger story of the world we live in, from grief and loss, to how we view our bodies through the lens of societal pressure and race, to the stories we tell ourselves about this land before and during the advent of slavery. The topics are serious, but the works are amazingly uplifting.”