Donald Nally, Music Director | Vocalists | Mission | Trustees

Donald Nally, conductor of VAE, lives in Philadelphia, where he is the founder and conductor of The Crossing, a Philadelphia-based professional choir that is devoted to the performance of new and modern choral music. He is formerly the Chorus Master at Lyric Opera of Chicago. He has also served many summers as Chorus Master of Il festival dei due mondi in Spoleto, Italy. Donald recently returned to the United States after a number of years at Welsh National Opera, where he conducted the WNO chorus and orchestra in major cities throughout England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. He conducted Handel's Jephtha for WNO, which was #2 on the Sunday Times's Top Five Opera Productions Nationwide, 2006. While in the UK, Donald often guest-conducted London's Philharmonia Chorus and collaborated with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Sinfonia Cymru.

Prior to Wales, Donald lived in Philadelphia where he was chorus master at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, director of music at Saint Mark's Church, and artistic director of the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, which, under his leadership, received Chorus America's 2002 Margaret Hillis National Award for Excellence in Choral Music and was named in City Paper's Best of Philadelphia. He also conducted The Bridge Ensemble which was featured seven times on the NPR program The First Art. He has conducted commissioned premieres of works by Benjamin C.S. Boyle, William Brooks, Neely Bruce, Jake Heggie, Sharon Hershey, Robert Maggio, John Musto, David Shapiro, Howard Yermish, and many more. He has collaborated on over 70 operas in over 100 productions; his work can be heard on recordings (Chandos) of Menotti’s three cantatas and his opera The Saint of Bleecker Street. His writings on the works of Samuel Barber have appeared in the Choral Journal. His music has been published by Paraclete Press.