Star-Child is a piece written in 1977 for orchestra and voices by the American composer George Crumb.

Harold C. Schonberg of The New York Times said of the work, "Star-Child…is sensitive, powerful, full of personality, and it marks a significant step in Mr. Crumb's development….

It calls for soprano, antiphonal children's voices, male speaking choir, bell ringers, and large orchestra.

[3] The current personnel lists calls for 4 flutes (also playing 4 piccolos), 4 oboes (1 doubling on English horn), 3 clarinets in B♭, 1 clarinet in E♭, 3 bassoons, 1 contrabassoon, 6 horns, 5 trumpets in C, 2 trumpets in D, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, 8 percussionists, 1 organ, 1 solo soprano, children's voices I and II (SASA), male speaking choir playing handbells, violins I, violins II, violas, cellos, and contrabasses.

[4] Star-Child was specifically written for Irene Gubrud (soprano), Pierre Boulez, and the New York Philharmonic, and they all performed the premiere of the piece on May 5, 1977.

Boulez, David Gilbert, James Chambers, and Larry Newland conducted the piece.

[6] Star-Child, much like other pieces written by Crumb, deals with Biblical quotations and a contrast between light and dark.

Throughout the piece is a sense of leaving a place of despair and darkness and reaching the freeing nature of lightness.

The eight percussionists play nontraditional instruments such as iron chains, flexatones, pot lids, sizzle cymbals, metal thunder sheets, log drums, and wind machines.

This melody "moves throughout the work in a circular and therefore static manner, a kind of background music over which the human drama is enacted".

Over this melody, Crumb superimposed sequences of contrasting musical lines in the style of Charles Ives.

"[10] Crumb used Latin text because he believed it conveyed a universal meaning of finding a way out of despair to a hopeful and bright future.

[11] Soprano: "Voice crying in the wilderness" Deliver me, O Lord from eternal death on that dreadful day when the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.

Nonetheless, certain music critics argued that Crumb inserted too many intricate details, perhaps creating too large of an ensemble.

The quotation by Schonberg at the beginning of this article, calls out the power, sensitivity, emotion, and complexity of the Star-Child.