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quotes

"This composition by O+A is a wonderful confusion of operatic voices, fugue construction and the clamorous vitality of steel on steel. It's exhilarating and scary and always very beautiful. The piece takes on each space it is performed in which I think would transform it and make it all new again for every new venue. I look forward to hearing it again."
Elizabeth LeCompte, director of The Wooster Group

Dear Bruce,
Your concert was so beautiful. I came with Claude and the children and we all loved it. Maud made a drawing of the 6 of you on stage and she said "they didn't have instruments but the sounds were their instruments." and she said "how did that woman with the short black hair stay so still?" and we all loved how sometimes we couldn't tell which were recorded sounds and which were ambient sounds. And the mass was sensational, so beautiful. Thanks for a lovely and memorable night.
Winsome Brown, actress; her daughter Maude, age 5

"With the audience seated in a circle around the musicians, and surrounded by another circle of speakers, O&A's Requiem for Fossil Fuels unfolded as a series of sonic environments that filled the air and moved the spirit.  The "orchestra of cities" provided a deeply textured setting for a splendid vocal quartet, using the Latin text of the Requiem mass.  The Requiem was simply one of the most memorable events we have done at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden. " 
John Schaeffer, host of WNYC's NEW SOUNDS LIVE and SOUNDCHECK

"sounds were transformational"
Stuart Culpepper, filmmaker

"‘rfff’ was such a powerful experience! I’ve recognized how damaging our dependence on fossil fuels is, but in the Winter Garden the other evening, I could physically feel it through my body and Sam's spatialization is subtle, expressive in itself, so that the location recordings swept through that space with an overwhelming power. I felt the voraciousness of this fossil-fueled economy, a sense of something devouring. And in its center, the small quartet of singers, so human-sounding, their voices, cutting cleanly through the noise, persisting. Superb voices beautifully blended.
The vocal writing is beautiful, and what a great idea to ground their pitches in the just intonation and harmonic spectra of the tuning tubes.  At first I was listening to them as an almost discrete layer in the mix, but gradually I could hear them as inseparable from all other sound, just as we are inseparable from the environment we’re creating. Very moving. Thank you!"
Annea Lockwood, composer

"I truly thought that the work I heard the other night in the World Financial Center was a work of genius; powerful, disturbing, gorgeous, ecstatic, in short, it was exquisite. I loved the way it combines and juxtaposes the ancient with the modern. Our culture and the world of music are blessed to have your work. In a word, I was stunned and will never forget it. Keep on doing this great work."
Andre Gregory, director and actor

"enlisted Christine and half dozen friends to attend the concert at winter garden last night. all enjoyed the performance tremendously. I'm glad I finally got to see the work at long last.   Amazing voices, beautiful music and sometimes freighting sounds. I thought it perfect for that space. there was even an alter of steps with Sally perched at its apex. the irony of someone who has spent a good part of her life looking for oil now occupying the highest seat at the requiem was supreme.   You and Sam have much to take pride in."
Lin Esser,  composer, artist, musician

"beautiful completion of an endeavor that represents collaborative genius, sonic transcendence, and sincerity of heart. "
Mary McGuinness, Sputnik Observatory

"that was a spectacular event yesterday, so enjoyed seeing and hearing the RFFF. Here is to a masterfully refined, wonderfully subtle yet expressive work, which sounded nothing short of heavenly, best diffusion I have heard in a long while. Loved the mix of voices and your recordings / ambient material and may I say the sub bass did touch me in a most intriguing way.
Very well done gentleman, prepare to tour this for a while!"
Kurt Hentschlager, installation artist, Granular Synthesis

"As timely as it is beautiful, "Requiem For Fossil Fuels" dares to be The Next Big Thing in new music.  At least that's how this listener heard it. The sonic materials deployed-human voices and industrial 'cantus fermi'-are also simultaneously the work's subtext, a story within a story, undergirding the Requiem narrative.  It is so clever, so bracing, so musically and culturally 'of the moment'...and yet so connected to the classical tradition and the past, with it's finely-wrought(and beautfully sung) choral writing, and it's bold appropriation of the Requiem form.  This is not a work that thinks small.  Make room in the canon.
Rob Morseberger, singer songwriter

"the latest kyrie with ambient New York noise in the background.  The kyrie is as haunting as any medieval motet & truly moving".
John D Hope.

"I hear the interpenetration of tonal harmonies of recorded sounds and the quartet, and your union of these two sets of sounds strikes the deep chord of a masterful requiem. I hear call of the Gregorians carried forward by Britten, Pärt, Reich, and O + A. It makes sense that we have such a deep emotional bond to fossil fuels. We've been nursed by them from the get-go, and we must contemplate their/our departure."
Thomas Weber, educator and headmaster