... you've put a thing of great beauty into the world.
'The Lost Birds' is musical poetry of a high order, and we are indebted to Tin for giving us a work of such beauty.
Tin pens a requiem for the ages.
Christopher Tin's 'The Lost Birds' is one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful CDs I've heard in months.
WXXI, Rochester, NY
A sweeping, romantic symphonic overture for a suite about the extinction of birds. It’s not as sad as it sounds. Okay, it is pretty sad. But it’s Christopher Tin, after all, so there is hopefulness here.
His settings are poignant expressions of the beauty of birds and sorrow at the loss of that beauty, and he spares no calories in his rich late-Romantic musical language and opulent scoring.
Christopher Tin’s music uplifts, while the words quietly remind us of birdsong.
‘The Lost Birds’ is a sweeping and gorgeous musical memorial to bird species driven to extinction by mankind.
A poignant lament for the many bird species doomed to extinction.
This is wonderful and emotional music for orchestra and voices in a recording featuring the brilliant choral group Voces8.
...a high-minded release whose goal is to mourn and to change...The music, combined with the rich instrumental and choral sounds, could suggest other topics than the one explored here, but Tin succeeds in his goal of introducing serious reflections into the crossover genre.
Christopher Tin has a unique gift for telling big stories and evoking big emotions, and with The Lost Birds, he offers a gorgeous elegy for birds driven to extinction...this haunting tribute warns us to consider our own fragile existence here on earth.
This, now Grammy-Award nominated, album struck us—and you, we’re told—at first listen. We’re thrilled to include this one as one of the best albums of 2022. We feel the same as WQXR listener Patricia: “Absolutely loved Lost Birds … The music transports one to bird flight and song.”
Mere words would not do justice to its beauty and emotional intensity, naturally arising at the crossroad of three immense creative forces: Tin’s compositional prowess in crossover and neoclassical music; the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s renditions of those compositions, evoking the majesty of flocks in flight on as little as violins and cellos; and VOCES8’s harmony of voices, soaring, proud, delivering at once profound joy and unbearable sadness. This album perfectly demonstrates the primal power of music to bypass all rationale and reason, so that it can touch us at our very core and gently guide our longing for what can never come again.
This elegiac sequence of settings by Grammy Award-winning composer Christopher Tin has a serious purpose: to remind us of how humankind has decimated the world’s avian population – where once our skies were thronging with flocks of birds, many species can no longer be found in the numbers previously enjoyed, if at all.
Bursting with beautiful symphonies and soaring melodies, the 12-track album celebrates the beauty of nature - but comes as a warning to what may befall humanity... This crowdfunded project is stunning, to say the least.
