Bozeman Magazine

About the Weekend:

Thanks to a new mobilized technological innovation called E.C.H.O.E.S. (Ex Covid Haptotropic Optimistic Electrophonic Sound), The Crossing, the Grammy-winning vocal group from Philadelphia, will be going outside this summer. In partnership with the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center and Cache Creek Outfitters, audiences will experience The Crossing like never before. Members of the group will be spread out over a high mountain meadow above Moose Creek in the Gallatin Canyon and amplified, so the audience experiences the music as they explore on foot.

Evening 1: The Forest

Friday, July 30th with timed entrances between 7-8pm

The Forest is an immersive hiking experience in which listeners walk through the performance. Hikers/listeners can move through the piece as quickly or slowly as they wish, and will encounter singers along the way as they explore the environment. Speakers are positioned close to the designated path, reestablishing those currently-broken relationships between singers and audience members, and telling our story – the story of a planet in crisis, its people and its forests in peril, and yet, in that curiously human way, a story of hope and a way forward.  

The text and music of The Forest focus on the symbiotic relationship between individual trees and the forest – a metaphor for the relationship between each singer and a full ensemble. The libretto is formed of singers’ reflection on their isolation during COVID-Time, overlaid with texts from Scott Russell Sanders’ essay “Mind in the Forest.” The music is composed by Kevin Vondrak and Donald Nally.

Evening 2: in nature

Saturday, July 31st @ 7pm

The final event of The Crossing’s 2021 residency features a glorious concert of three new pieces up in a high alpine meadow on top of the Gallatin Canyon at Cache Creek Outfitters, a 15 minute drive up the Moose Creek forest service road off of Highway 191 between Big Sky and Gallatin Gateway. Event goers will park at Cache Creek Outfitters, and then walk for 10-15 minutes along an old logging road to the mountain meadow concert. The featured pieces for the evening are Davig Lang’s in nature, which was commissioned by The Crossing and the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in August of 2020 and will now be performed actually in nature; a new choral arrangement of the iconic Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, by Gavin Bryars; and Ayanna Woods’ shift, a contemporary piece that reflects on monuments.