Each year, Shen Yun’s artistic director composes the show’s original score that uniquely employs Chinese instruments and melodies in a way that is familiar to Western audiences’ ears, but contains China’s rich emotional expressiveness.

“I’ve always been attracted to that style of music,” Miller said, who plays the guitar, the dulcimer, and sings a capella. “In fact, I can play that kind scale in my mind. It’s been intuitive for me. I’m so impressed because they’re bringing in the spirit and the divine inside of the music, as my heart. So seeing the movement inside of the sound just hits the mark. It brings the heart and the mind together in a beautiful presentation.”

Miller resonated with this aspect of the show and drew parallels to her own experience and beliefs.

“The singers were amazing. The voices, they are celestial. It’s as close as you can get to being an angel in a body. And the beautiful images of singing and what was happening is really cryptic to where we are at on this planet. Because the old is going out and the new is being made new. And God is coming to earth, and it’s just gorgeous,” she said.

Miller’s biggest take away from the show was encouragement about the future of society.

Barry Cahill plays woodwinds and keyboard as a profession and said he was blown away by Shen Yun’s overall performance.

“It’s amazing. Everything about it is perfection. The music, the choreography,” Cahill said, “The thing I’m most astonished with is how not only they can do all those incredible things, but remember them all. The dance numbers are so long and involved and there’s so much to remember, and let alone to have the agility and strength and endurance to do it, and then remember it all on top of it. It’s really quite astonishing.”

Cahill had enormous praise for Shen Yun’s unique orchestra. “The music is incredible, and it’s so well matched to the dance. Everything from every gong strike, every percussion hit, to the leaps that happen simultaneously; and, the flowing Western part of it—the strings, the woodwinds—melded with the traditional Chinese instruments; that really helped convey the story.

“The orchestra’s extremely well-rehearsed and tight. And it’s not a thrown-together orchestra. I can tell these people have played together for a long time just because it’s so good.

“It’s brilliant. It’s brilliant. The counterpoint, everything about it,” Cahill said.

According to Shen Yun’s website, they believe that “the classical arts are a window into higher knowledge and even divine inspiration. And what better gateway to this world is there than classical music? A place where the heavenly and earthly intertwine, where we are moved at our deepest levels, and where beauty inspires us to greater things.... [we] strive to wed perfection of self with the perfection of art.”

Cahill noticed this divinely-inspired aspect of the performance.

“Shen Yun was a great balance of yin and yang. There is the strength of the leaps and the twirls and the windmills, but there’s also the grace and gentle flowing-ness, particularly the water sleeves number. It was just really, really beautiful. And, very well balanced between the two ends of the spectrum,” Cahill said.