Press
About Two Premieres and a Reunion:
“music that reveals the unexpected joys and shadowy depths of the American experience”-The New Yorker Magazine [read more]
About “I Wish They All Could Be. . .”
“. . . a dense but playful harmonic frame.”-The New York Times [read more]
“. . .stinging, Beach-Boys-meets-minimalism score, tinged with Mozartian grace.”-Oakland (CA) Tribune
About The Golden Gate:
“One of the best new operas of the 21st Century.”
-Opera News [read more]“. . lithe melodic lines that flow and entwine in the manner of Monteverdi”-The New York Times [read more]“The music itself is sinuous and fluid, always in movement and always responsive to the text.”
-Musical America [read more]
About Photo-Op:
“It’s wonderful fun and shouldn’t be missed.”
-Washington Post [read more]“an irresistible choice in a Presidential election year.”
-Chamber Music“ . . . the wily irony of Weill and Brecht”
-The New York Post“insouciant, exhilarating, accessible, and disarmingly likable music. . . strikingly original.”
-CD Review“While the blamelessly diatonic melodies recall Virgil Thomson, the structures enlist and adapt minimalist procedures for satirical ends.”
-The New Yorker“Cummings’s musical style is weird, but its logic ultimately convinces.”
-The Village Voice“an eminently stageable morality revue about the fatuousness of American politics.”
-The New York Times [read more]
About Insertions:
“The music is sharply invented and trimly and surely composed.”
-The New Yorker
About Positions 1956:
“This is what theatre and certainly opera should be but rarely is.”
-DC Theatre Scene [read more]“. . . the rhetoric of Handelian oratorio and the dance styles of the Arthur Murray, from anun-cha-cha-like but lovely cha-cha to the Viennese waltz.”
-Washington Post [read more]
About Tonkin:
“. . . an emotional impact heightened by its sympathy for both sides.”
-The Washington Post [read more]“Mr. Cummings samples musical history for techniques and sonorities the way rappers sample pop rhythms.”
-The New York Times [read more]“ . . . a more complex view of war than any previous writer for the operatic stage.”
-The Washington Post [read more]“Mr. Cummings’ and Mr. Bird’s hearts are clearly in the right place: they want their opera to be as broadly accessible as possible.”
-The New York Observer
About Eros and Psyche:
“To say that ‘Eros and Psyche’ is entertaining is an understatement.”
-Musical America“I can’t think of anybody else who’s doing what he’s doing right now.”
-The New Yorker’s Andrew Porter“ . . . a delightful opera. It has charm, wit and plenty of content.”
-Opera Magazine (London)
About Summer Air:
“ . . . this deft, delicately scored, and beguiling work.”
-The New Yorker Magazine