"Profoundly strange and overwhelmingly beautiful...If the text is sometimes baffling and hermetic, it is confident enough in its oddness that you do not worry about crashing when it flies close to the twee line...What’s haunting is how the oratorio form and Christian’s private cosmology elevate such banal statements to an almost sacred plane. Alternating in the classical manner between massed choral singing and solo arias — all exquisitely performed under the music direction of Ben Moss — she throws several centuries of musical styles into the pot and swirls them around."
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"5/5 stars! A sui generis meditation on time and existence, a classical choral masterwork infused with pop, blues and gospel. A dozen superlative vocalists and six marvelous instrumentalists make sense and aural spectacle out of Christian's compositions...Lest that sound pretentious, be assured that 'Oratorio for Living Things' is, above all, exhilarating."
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"I have always been a little annoyed by dramatists’ slipshod use of scientific principles — perhaps because I’ve seen too many plays that shoehorn quantum theory into human relationships...But Christian smashes through that old prejudice of mine. As her smiling performers, all in beautiful voice, sing that we are 'made for collision' because of our atomic makeup, I believed it. The 'Oratorio for Living Things' uses music to dissolve the listeners into their fundamental particles, then uses simple choreography and intimate eye contact to reorganize us."
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"This collision of classical music, experimental theater, and theoretical physics generates so much creative energy, it feels like it could power every theater in New York...While no performer stands out, all make personal connections with the material and each audience member...Music director Ben Moss achieves an almost seamless vocal cohesion in a chorus that is always on the move, performing in the round."
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"The 'Oratorio for Living Things' is a miraculous, thought-provoking celebration of hope, life, and the human spirit, ravishingly expressed through a brilliant fusion of music and theater."
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"You can’t understand the delicate alchemy of performers and material, staging and design that have resulted in this transportive experience unless you witness it for yourself. Christian, director Lee Sunday Evans, and the soul-altering eighteen-person ensemble of singers and musicians have achieved something so intensely personal for the audience that it then unites the individuals into a collective...Christian’s composition is wholly original, often startling, occasionally hilarious. The sheer volume of complicated, avant-garde music the singers are tasked with performing from memory is a feat unto itself."
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such a gorgeous, awe-inspiring concert of original music by Heather Christian that it feels like a religious experience. Indeed, the music — inflected with Baroque, gospel, blues, pop, and jazz — could work as a church service. A third of the songs are even in Latin… It’s not necessary to grasp fully what’s going on in order to appreciate the soaring score….[but] there’s no denying the show’s intellectual complexity
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"'Oratorio' is unique in that it is like a mass—glorious and contemplative—but there is no single preacher. Instead, the ensemble of twelve performers...It is a sprawling topic, and Christian’s rich score provides all the wild and loving notes to give it its due. And while this mass reminded me of the inextricable ties between a church service and theater, I am not sure this particular piece needed theatricalizing: I would have preferred just to listen to it."
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