Donald Nally

Donald Nally

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 over 200 works, and with his ensemble The Crossing has produced 36 recordings, won four Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance, and was nominated 10 times.

Donald 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 the Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.  

Donald works closely with the artists Allora & Calzadilla and composer David Lang on projects in museums of London, Porto, Cordoba, Edmonton, Houston, Osaka, and Philadelphia. He has been a 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. Two of his projects have been preserved by the National Archives of The Library of Congress as cultural artifacts, both responding to the 2020 pandemic: his 72-chapter series Rising w/ The Crossing, and Carols after a Plague, with contributions from 12 composers.  

Recent collaborations include the Swedish Radio Choir, Klockriketeatern at the Finnish National Opera, Musikgebouw (Amsterdam), the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, the Big Ears Festival, the Haarlem KoorBiënnale, and various projects at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Donald is a frequent guest artist/teacher at universities, including Yale, Harvard, The University of Chicago, Indiana University, Notre Dame, UNC Chapel Hill, and Boston Conservatory.  

Donald is the John W. Beattie Chair of Music Emeritus at Northwestern University. He is Professor of Choral Studies at Westminster Choir College of Rider University.