The Lost Birds

An extinction elegy for our feathered friends

AN EXTINCTION ELEGY

The Lost Birds is a musical memorial to bird species driven to extinction by humankind. Sweeping and elegiac, it's a haunting tribute to those soaring flocks that once filled our skies, but whose songs have since been silenced. It's a celebration of their feathered beauty: their symbolism as messengers of hope, peace, and renewal. But it's also a warning about our own tenuous existence on the planet: that the fate that befell these once soaring flocks foreshadows our own extinction.

Tracklist

  1. Flocks a Mile Wide 
  2. The Saddest Noise (feat. VOCES8)
  3. Bird Raptures (feat.VOCES8)
  4. A Hundred Thousand Birds (feat.VOCES8)
  5. Wild Swans (feat.VOCES8)
  6. Intermezzo
  7. Thus In The Winter (feat. VOCES8)
  8. There Will Come Soft Rains (feat. VOCES8)
  9. All That Could Never Be Said (feat. VOCES8)
  10. I Shall Not See The Shadows (feat. VOCES8)
  11. In The End (feat. VOCES8)
  12. Hope Is The Thing With Feathers (feat. VOCES8)

Watch the Videos

Music videos, trailers, behind-the-scenes looks and more.

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Guest Artists

Voces8
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
MUSIC FOR APPRECIATING NATURE

This album is a gentler production than Christopher's previous works. The language is pastoral and romantic, by turns soaring and delicate, but with the slightest whisper of melancholy. It is a response to the noise of our times; a return to simplicity, clean lines, and the timelessness of hymns and folk melodies. It is a triumph of loveliness; a soundtrack for appreciating nature, and a reminder that we must preserve its ephemeral beauty while it still exists.

Grammy Nominated

The Lost Birds was nominated for a GRAMMY® at the 65th Annual GRAMMY Awards in the category 'Best Classical Compendium'. This was one of two nominations that Christopher received that year (the other being for his soundtrack to Old World.)

Stream

Vinyl, CDs and Downloads

Breaking Records... Again

Christopher once again funded this album with support from Kickstarter Backers and broke his own previous record, raising over $225,000 to become the highest-funded classical music Kickstarter campaign ever.

Lyrics and Liner Notes

REVIEWS

“

'The Lost Birds' is musical poetry of a high order, and we are indebted to Tin for giving us a work of such beauty.

- Textura
“

Tin pens a requiem for the ages.

- A Closer Listen
“

Christopher Tin's 'The Lost Birds' is one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful CDs I've heard in months.

- WXXI, Rochester, NY
“

His settings are poignant expressions of the beauty of birds and sorrow at the loss of that beauty, and he spares no calories in his rich late-Romantic musical language and opulent scoring.

- WOSU
“

Christopher Tin’s music uplifts, while the words quietly remind us of birdsong.

- PRI's The World
“

A poignant lament for the many bird species doomed to extinction.

- Apple Music
“

Christopher Tin has a unique gift for telling big stories and evoking big emotions, and with The Lost Birds, he offers a gorgeous elegy for birds driven to extinction...this haunting tribute warns us to consider our own fragile existence here on earth.

- KDFC
“

This, now Grammy-Award nominated, album struck us—and you, we’re told—at first listen. We’re thrilled to include this one as one of the best albums of 2022. We feel the same as WQXR listener Patricia: “Absolutely loved Lost Birds … The music transports one to bird flight and song.”

- WQXR, Best Classical Albums of 2022
“

Mere words would not do justice to its beauty and emotional intensity, naturally arising at the crossroad of three immense creative forces: Tin’s compositional prowess in crossover and neoclassical music; the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s renditions of those compositions, evoking the majesty of flocks in flight on as little as violins and cellos; and VOCES8’s harmony of voices, soaring, proud, delivering at once profound joy and unbearable sadness. This album perfectly demonstrates the primal power of music to bypass all rationale and reason, so that it can touch us at our very core and gently guide our longing for what can never come again.

- The Northerner, Best of 2022

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