By Sarah Bryan Miller
Post-Dispatch Classical Music Critic

The tune "Divinum Mysterium" (known in English as "Of the Father's Love Begotten") started life as a medieval setting of the Sanctus; the words are by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius (348-413). Daniel Kellogg takes it and makes it into a modern account of the creation. In eighth blackbird's "Beginnings" (Cedille CDR 90000 076), it is a beautiful, moving tour de force for the chamber sextet, which commissioned the piece.

By John Aiello

Out on a limb

"Violence,'' "Dramamine,'' "Zaka'': Caramoor International Music Festival's Friday evening set list read a lot like a grunge album. And the players, twenty- and thirtysomethings in black, with open collars and form-fitting fashions, had a hint of renegade about them.

By Allan Kozinn
New York Times Music Critic

EIGHTH BLACKBIRD, a Chicago new-music band, established its vibrant, bright-hued sonic signature as well as a taste for the whimsical on its first two CD's, "Round Nut Tool" and "Thirteen Ways." Here it presents a decidedly more sober and mystical program: works by Daniel Kellogg and George Crumb that offer very different conceptions of the creation of the universe. But the performances have all the sparkle, energy and precision of the earlier outings.

By Clarke Bustard

For most chamber-music ensembles, a composition dating from 1971 would not be a golden oldie. But, then, most chamber groups are not eighth blackbird.

By Joshua Kosman
San Francisco Chronicle

With its second commercial release, the brilliant sextet Eighth Blackbird continues to inject vitality and allure into the new-music scene.

By Donald Rosenberg

New and recent music needs advocates who devote body, soul and just about everything else to the creative ideas at hands and embouchures. The sextet known as eighth blackbird is one such group, as can be heard on its newest release.