'Hats off to the Heidelberg Choral Society for commissioning a full-length oratorio from an Australian composer, performing it well, and gathering a capacity audience to hear it'

Tony Way - The Age



Extracts from Origins featured on

ABC Science Show

12 and 19 August 2023.


Click here for Movement 2 'Rocky Horror'

Click here for Movement 17 'Extinction'




Origins is a major new oratorio conceived by singer and evolutionary geneticist, Jenny Graves, as a secular successor to Haydn's 200-year-old oratorio, Creation.

Jenny co-wrote the libretto with fellow singer and poet, Leigh Hay.

Heidelberg Choral Society commissioned brilliant young Melbourne musician, Nicholas Buc, to compose the score.



Origins presents a musical depiction of the early universe, the fundamentals of molecular life, and evolution, as never attempted before!


The breathtaking libretto, inspired by cosmology, evolutionary genetics, anthropology and ecology, tells the origins of life from the Big Bang to the emergence of humanity, and celebrates the role of science in understanding and protecting our planet.




Origins brings the beauty and wonder of science to the public, expressing some of the most profound scientific truths in a unique fusion of science and music.