The Crossing, Donald Nally - The Book of Never (2026) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. The Book of Never: I. Passions of Other People...
02. The Book of Never: II. The World's a Town
03. The Book of Never: III. Burns I'd Like to Forget…
04. The Book of Never: IV. The World's a Town
05. The Book of Never: V. Tears I've Never Wept…
06. The Book of Never: VI. The World's a Town
07. The Book of Never: VII. Names of Things I Once Believed…

The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally, delivers a meditation on memory, exile, and the written word by composer Aaron Helgeson. THE BOOK OF NEVER is inspired by the 1000-year-old Novgorod Codex, a desperate attempt of one monk to preserve the culture of an ex-communicated community being strangled by authoritarian rulers. Mirroring the layers upon layers of writing in the codex, Helgeson freely weaves fragments of its recovered texts with words by defiant authors and artists across eras, including Oscar Wilde, Pablo Neruda, Angela Davis, Gertrude Stein, Thanhhà Lại, Holocaust survivor André Singer, and The Rolling Stones. In music composed of layered fragments of early Slavonic hymnody, the work unfolds as a continuous choral cycle — a thoughtful statement and meaningful reflection on loss, resistance, and the endurance of language.