Unalienable: Shekhar, Smith, Bhutani, Gilbertson
Shadow of the Cliffs 2a by Caroline Bergstrøm Scheibel.
UNALIENABLE
The world premiere of Nina Shekhar’s Tic-Talk
w/ Dynasty Battles, MIDI keyboard
w/ music of Kile Smith, Anuj Bhutani, and Michael Gilbertson
Saturday, October 18 @ 7pm
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
Sunday, October 19 @ 3pm
First Presbyterian Church, Germantown
presented in partnership with Artcinia
PROGRAMPROGRAM
Program
east wind melts the ice (2021) – Anuj Bhutani
Where the Mind is Without Fear (2022) – Kile Smith
Tic-Talk (2025) – Nina Shekhar
world premiere
I. Tic
II. Talk
Let All the Strains of Joy (2025) – Kile Smith
world premiere
Cloud Anthem (2024) – Michael Gilbertson
Nina Shekhar’s Tic-Talk is commissioned for The Crossing and Donald Nally by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting; Nina was the 2023–2024 Resident Composer at The Crossing, made possible by a gift from Peter and Judy Leone.
Notes + Texts
east wind melts the ice
music by Anuj Bhutani
text from an ancient Japanese calendar
a note from the composer:
east wind melts the ice is the culmination of several influences on my work; the text is taken from the ancient Japanese calendar, which divides the year into 50+ micro-seasons, to emphasize that everything is always changing: a central component of eastern meditation practices. The method of adaptation of the text is inspired by the Carnatic rhythmic tradition of the “mora” (shape), which was also applied to text in ancient Indian songs. Musically, the raga (scale) unfolds in the manner of a truncated alap, before breaking out into full-on Western counterpoint, all the while underpinned by a drone inspired by the tanpura. However, unlike in Indian traditions, the drone does change pitch throughout (classical Indian music has no concept of harmony and always keeps one note as the drone), questioning which lens is being used to view the raga.
the ice
melts the ice
wind melts the ice
east wind melts the ice
wind melts the ice
melts the ice
the ice
Where the Mind is Without Fear
music by Kile Smith
text by Rabindranath Tagore
a note from the composer:
Ever since singing Paul Creston’s Three Chorales from Tagore in high school, I’ve wondered if I’d one day have the chance to grapple with the work of that wondrous poet, writer, and artist Rabindranath Tagore.Tagore’s powerful repetition of “Where” led me to a more textural setting than I otherwise might have composed for this invigorating poem. “Where” performs two duties simultaneously: It not only hammers down the start of the line, it lifts the entire poem into the air. You feel the freeing, striving, stretching, ever-widening forces he calls on, from that one word “Where.”
But repeating “Where,” as I have done at the start of this setting and elsewhere, adds another dimension. By itself, it is a designation—this is where—but intoning it over and over for two pages turns it into a question—where is this?—answered finally by “Into that heaven of freedom.”
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action ⎯
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Tic-Talk
music and text by Nina Shekhar
Nina Shekhar’s Tic-Talk is commissioned for The Crossing and Donald Nally by Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting; Nina was the 2023–2024 Resident Composer for The Crossing, made possible by a gift from Peter and Judy Leone.
a note from the composer:
As someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder, I grew up with many vocal tics: certain words I had to say together in succession, forced inhalations a specific number of times, over-swallowing, non-verbal sounds, and vocal fry uttered for a particular duration of time. These tics were a product of my anxiety, compulsions that I felt I had to perform in order to protect my loved ones, as well as a discomfort in my own body. Over time, my vocal muscles would become tense and exhausted, and I developed a fraught relationship with my voice.
Tic-Talk for MIDI keyboard and choir is an attempt to reclaim my voice. The first Movement, “Tic,” examines some of these vocal tics, as performed by singers in the choir. The voice is so personal because it is directly connected to our bodies, but in this piece, I also explore the power of disembodiment by having the MIDI keyboard trigger vocal samples I recorded. The result produces an uncanny valley effect, playing with digital vs. acoustic and the technological/human divide. With today’s use of AI-generated voices, how can we preserve our sense of humanity and reclaim technology as a tool for empowerment?
The second movement, “Talk,” investigates cultural policing of language. Drawing from my parents’ experiences with accents after moving to the U.S, the piece plays with irregular vowels and heteronyms that highlight the difficulty of learning English.
My sincere thanks to pianist Dynasty Battles, conductor Donald Nally, and The Crossing for commissioning this piece.
Tic
biting her lips
tongue-tied
disturbed and disoriented
look at her eyes
blink twice
do you speak in tongues?
do you bite the mother hand, the mother heart
mother may I taste my sins?
is guilt your native tongue, your rule of thumb?
do you twist our fate
with every tongue-tying word you say?
let me count the ways
I preach by word of mouth
do you speak in tongues?
is my haunted soul possessed?
mother may I taste my sins?
do I possess the holy testament?
is your love compulsory?
is my mind an enemy?
is your love compulsory?
is my truth a fallacy?
Talk
You tell my father
To cool the heat from his tea
Tame the dog in his d’s
Tame the god in his g’s
You tell my mother
To rip the silk from her song
Silence the voiced in her voice
You sew their lips shut when they skew
Tear their tears
And write their rights
You straighten the slant from their rhyme
You lead with lead
And polish their pride
Does the rain in Spain stay mainly in the plain?
Does the snow lay aglow all over Buffalo?
Will a thorn pierce as sharp if it’s called another name?
Let All the Strains of Joy
music by Kile Smith
text by Rabindranath Tagore
a note from the composer:
Joy, the touchstone of this poem, is often misunderstood. It isn’t pleasure, happiness, or glee, but is forged in longing. It isn't joy if it isn't inconsolable. Joy is our great desire, joy grows by layers, and joy always carries with it the sting of beauty. Yet it is violent and disruptive. It rips meaning open. It is burningly pure.
To me, the “strains” then, rather than being just the “verses” or “melodies” of joy, glow in exertion. My setting paws the ground on "strains" for a full 34 measures before it reaches “joy.” The music then tries to keep up with Tagore’s rapturously descriptive language. Each voice part takes its turn leading the choir from phrase to phrase: first the tenors, then altos, sopranos, and, after a shouting unison at "shaking and waking," the basses.
The finale, from “the open red lotus of pain,” looks to another landscape. It tries to capture what Tagore was trying to offer: the discernment, through joy, that lies beyond words. This is where peace lives. Yes, joy is often misunderstood. But there is more than understanding. There is a peace that passes understanding.
I composed Let All the Strains of Joy out of the great love and appreciation I have for Donald Nally and The Crossing. It's humbling to realize how much time, artistry, and humanity they've devoted to my music over the years. This work attempts to put voice to the depth of my gratitude.
Let all the strains of joy mingle in my last song ⎯ the joy that makes the earth flow over in the riotous excess of the grass, the joy that sets the twin brothers, life and death, dancing over the wide world, the joy that sweeps in with the tempest, shaking and waking all life with laughter, the joy that sits still with its tears on the open red lotus of pain, and the joy that throws everything it has upon the dust, and knows not a word.
Cloud Anthem
music by Michael Gilbertson
text by Richard Blanco
a note from the composer:
Cloud Anthem was commissioned by The Crossing for the pre-election project The Crossing Votes 2024 and premiered as an animated film by Brett Snodgrass. The text is adapted from a poem by Richard Blanco that imagines a utopian post-political world.
Until we are clouds that tear like bread but
mend like bones. Until we weave each other
like silk sheets shrouding mountains…
Until we soften our hard
edges, free to become any shape imaginable:
a rose or an angel crafted by the breeze…
Until we scatter ourselves—
…then band together
like stringed pearls. Until we learn to listen to
each other, as thunderous as opera or as soft
as a showered lullaby.
Until we have the courage to vanish like sails
into the horizon, or be at peace, anchored still.
Until we move without any measure…
floating
in an abyss of [virtual] blue we belong to.
Until we care enough
for the earth [to] bless it as morning fog...
Until we remember
we’re born from rivers and dewdrops.
We can die valiant as rainbows,
and hold light in our lucid bodies...
We can decide to move boundlessly, without
creed [or] desire. Until we [...share]
a kingdom with no king,
a city with no walls, a country with no name,
a nation without any borders or claim. Until
we abide as one together in one single sky.
Brackets and ellipses indicate the composer’s minor modifications to the original text.
Used by kind permission of the author.
We are grateful to those who make The Crossing possible.
The Crossing
Dario Amador-Lage
Karen Blanchard
Colin Dill
Micah Dingler
Ryan Fleming
Joanna Gates
Sam Grosby
Michaël Hudetz
Steven Hyder
Lauren Kelly
Anika Kildegaard
Henry Koch
Andrew Major
Victoria Marshall
Hannah Dixon McConnell
Jenna Hernandez McLean
Benjamin Perri
Olivia Prendergast
Ellen Robertson
Daniel Schwartz
Rebecca Siler
Daniel Spratlan
Shari Wilson
Yiran Zhao
Donald Nally, conductor
Dynasty Battles, MIDI keyboard
Kevin Vondrak, associate conductor
John Grecia, collaborative keyboardist
Lee Hagon, guest collaborative keyboardist
Paul Vazquez, sound designer
Our 2025-2026 season artwork is by Caroline Bergstrøm Scheibel.
Join us for all of our 2025-2026 Season:
Of being numerous
November 21 | Self-Evident
Christopher Cerrone’s Of being numerous (world premiere)
Caroline Shaw’s Ochre
Philadelphia and Milwaukee
December 19-21 | Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor
The Crossing @ Christmas 2025
Philadelphia and New York City
January 29 & 31 | To Provide New Guards
The Crossing @ Boston Symphony Orchestra
David Lang’s poor hymnal (abridged version)
February 25 | Rectitude
Harold Meltzer’s You Are Who I Love
w/ Sandbox Percussion
Stanford University
and more…
