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 Tim Page, chief classical music critic
The Washington Post

Tim Page chose "beginnings" as one of his Top 5 CD's for 2004

By John von Rhein
Chicago Tribune Music Critic

This second release by the University of Chicago-based ensemble eighth blackbird for Cedille may cover a narrower range of music than its predecessor but the music is just as consistently absorbing and beautifully performed.

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.