Donald Nally collaborates with creative artists, leading orchestras, and art museums to make new works for choir that address social and environmental issues. He has commissioned nearly 200 works and, with his ensemble The Crossing (Musical America’s 2024 Ensemble of the Year), has produced thirty-three recordings, winning three Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance, while nominated nine times.
Nally 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 prepared choruses for many internationally recognized conductors at the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra (London), American Composers Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Spoleto Festival Orchestra.
Nally works 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 and music director of The Mile Long Opera, David Lang’s 1000-voice work on The High Line in Manhattan. His 72-chapter series Rising w/ The Crossing, a response to the 2020 pandemic, has been preserved by the National Archives of 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 in Stockholm, the Big Ears Festival, the Haarlem KoorBiënnale, and various projects at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nally is a frequent guest artist/teacher at universities, including Yale, Harvard, the University of Chicago, Indiana University, Notre Dame, Westminster Choir College, and Boston Conservatory.
The 2024/25 season includes performances with The Crossing at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Drake University, McCarter Theater in Princeton and Abendmusik in Lincoln; and guest artist/teacher residencies at Boston University, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the University of Iowa.
Nally is the John W. Beattie Chair of Music Emeritus at Northwestern University. He is Director of Choral Studies at Westminster Choir College of Rider University.
July 2024
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSO by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
