Currier’s music has been met with great  critical acclaim.
Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Tim Page, the chief cultural critic of the Washington Post and a critic for New York Newsday,  has written of his “engaging, virtuosic and richly inventive music, realized with impeccable taste,” and has said that “Currier does not fit into any of the pre-fabricated categories that have been set aside to describe composers. Despite the intense expressive qualities of his best music, he is not quite a ‘neo-Romantic’ for there is none of the angst-ridden grandiosity that typifies so much work in that genre. To call him a ‘neo-Classicist’ would be more accurate but still reductive, for he is willing to take the emotional leaps that are proscribed within the tidy worlds of most composers in this genre. And while Currier’s music is often wildly virtuosic it never seems overcrowded with notes, as so much work by the so-called ‘maximalists’ does...........Ultimately, Currier is an independent, with no seeming allegiance to any creed but the most valuable one of all - that of creating a succinct, personal, well-crafted music to the best of his ability..........” 

Others have echoed Tim Page’s praise. After the premiere of his one-act monodrama A Kafka Cantata, the music critic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette elected the work’s premiere to be the #1 musical event of the year 1993 in Pittsburgh.

Some selected reviews:

“........Currier’s powerful composition peeped through and I could glimpse a great piece of genius.......the Verdehr Trio plunged in....Now the clarinet, now the violin would lead, marking out footfalls of the future. The piano would follow covering up the fresh footprints softly. Then the violin would pluck, exploring the recesses of the mind........The modern age: alienated and fragmented, longing for a trusting deed. Flashes: Of pain and joy - unshared. Full stops of silence: Meaningless waiting for explanation. Discrete happenings building slowly into mellow experience...........All this and more pervaded the unexpected gift of Currier.....Who was this Currier that he had grasped a language jumping boundaries and tongues?....he had set fire with a tiny spark.....Thinking aloud. The violin puts the piano aside. The atonal range of Currier was amazing. There was the spontaneity of jazz without its tradition of flippancy. There was the tradition of classical music without its pompous, secret airs. The miniatures were sketches in line strokes. Simple, yet firm -......a diffusing sense of the warmth tingling the tension of modern life away.......The world will hear a lot and drink deep of the creative cup of Nathan Currier.............The rousing climax after the dialogue of the two musical ideas summed up what I would call: Glimpses or footsteps of the future. Thank you, for the unexpected gift of Nathan Currier!..... the Verdehr Trio gave an inkling of what’s in America, and Currier is a beacon..........”
Maharashtra Herald, Poona, India

“Metamorphosen’s commissioned piece for this concert was The Last Thoughts of Gregor Samsa by New- England born Nathan Currier. Inspired by the final pages of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, this haunting work  alternates bold but truncated gestures with refulgent Mahlerian outpourings, over a field of clustered microtonal humming.......This piece was paired with Currier’s Hymn, written as part of a gallery installation project, where it played on a continuous tape loop for an entire month. Here a simple diatonic tune is decorated by a twelve-tone melody; the composer described this as his search for a synthesis  between the over-rational and the emotional. Agonizing, anxious attempts at reconciliation brought the two poles closer and closer until the final touching cadence on an octave.”
The Boston Globe

“The Shanghai Quartet presented a stunning selection of chamber music yesterday........Most dramatic among the three works was the premiere performance of The Quartet Book, by Nathan Currier....the music consists of fifteen short movements........the odd-numbered movements are linked by transitional movements, each based on a single note from the first chord.... There were moods of inquisitiveness, whimsy, tension, even fear. Throughout, one’s ear kept reaching for resolution of that first chord. Thwarted always by the expectant discordant buzz beneath, the chord stubbornly resisted organization until the satisfying last movement. The Quartet Book is intriguing and accessible. Clearly it needs and deserves to be performed further....a daunting maze........”
The Richmond Times-Dispatch

“This is a terrific CD......throughout  the virtuosity and complexity of the creator’s mind make everything sound new. Like all the best composers, Currier mostly sounds like himself. There are obvious influences, but the language is entirely personal, perhaps the very hardest thing to achieve in music.......... The virtuoso piano work, From the Grotto, that opens the disc pretty much lays it all out for the listener......traces of everything from the over-the top virtuosity that one associates with Sorabji to the pianistic madness of Stravinsky’s Three Pieces from Petrushka........are combined into a brilliant work of compositional virtuosity and infinite energy. Perhaps the greatest compliment that one can pay the work is that it sounds very much of a piece, the different elements coming together to form something new and vital with nary a hint of pastiche about them............According to the Tower Records Web site this is the only CD devoted entirely to the music of Nathan Currier. Hopefully there will be many many more. Urgently recommended”
Fanfare

 “Nathan Currier’s Adagio and Variations  received its New York Premiere..........This is an ambitious work, more than a half-hour long.........the composer seemed to be displaying his command which he used very well.........one admired the sheer sweep of the music, its grand, late-Romantic grasp, its mixture of pointillism and panorama.”      
Tim Page, New York Newsday

“During Wednesday’s concert the Verdehr Trio....took the wraps off Entropic Developments by Nathan Currier. The composer says the title refers to the music’s depiction of thermodynamic principals. It  may well do this, but it also stands interestingly on its own as a piece of absolute music, a series of dissipating outbursts followed by renewals of energy, all melded together with very original and interesting connecting musical thoughts. There is a sense of logical organic progression in this music which makes it hang together as a listening experience.......I was reminded of Nielson’s “Inextinguishable” Symphony, which limns the indomitability of the human life force. Much smaller scaled, Currier’s new work, with its diminishing wavelengths, regenerative ending and shrill final chord seems to confirm something about the inevitability of natural process.”
The Buffalo News

“a spectacular display of musical and dramatic virtuosity........Nathan Currier’s A Kafka Cantata has the earmarks of a major work......Last evening’s premiere was engaging, entertaining and provocative.....it is a multi-layered piece, which takes its inspiration from Bach’s “Coffee Cantata”.…it is not necessary to know Bach’s masterwork to enjoy the new work, but it does enhance the fun. The music for the present day characters is witty and telling, while the Kafka arias are serious and substantial.......... ”
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“.........the young American composer Nathan Currier benefited from the best performance he could dream of for his Sambuca Sonata, three highly successful pieces, full of compositional discoveries, and a sense of humor that was both very effective and enjoyable.”      
Le Figaro

“..........Melody used effectively....”
American Record Guide

“ .......an effective work......”        
Los Angeles Times