Eric Whitacre
Eric Whitacre
Eric Whitacreis a Grammy-winning American composer, conductor, and speaker, known for his choral, orchestral and wind ensemble music. He is also known for his "Virtual Choir" projects, bringing individual voices from around the globe together into an online choir. In March 2016, he was appointed as Los Angeles Master Chorale's first artist-in-residence at the Walt Disney Concert Hall...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth2 January 1970
CountryUnited States of America
When you look back on music history, it falls into these neat periods, but of course, the period you yourself are living through seems totally scattered and chaotic.
I'm not a culture snob. So while, of course, I think the Mozart 'Requiem' or, say, Beethoven's 'Ninth' are some of the greatest works of art in the history of humankind, that's not to say the Beatles or Queen or Simon and Garfunkel aren't brilliant, beautiful, important works of art that should be sung without a sense of irony.
With vocal and choral music, first and foremost, it's the text. Not only do I need to serve the text, but the text - when I'm doing it right - acts as the perfect 'blueprint', and all the architecture is there. The poet has done the heavy lifting, so my job is to find the soul of the poem and then somehow translate that into music.
When I went to college at the University of Nevada back in Las Vegas, I got tricked into singing in choir. The first thing we did was the Mozart 'Requiem.' That was the piece that changed my life overnight.
For the first six or eight months at Juilliard I felt paralysed. I didn't know what I was doing.
There must be four or five hundred choirs here in London alone. In a way, there's nowhere else on Earth I could go and get this level and passion for singing in the one place.
I wouldn't say that I'm actually trying to cause chills in the audience, but certainly my goal is to, at the very least, effect a physiological response - at the most, to effect some sort of state change, ideally, in the audience.
To have a live choir there on the stage and then these singers from different countries signing with us in real time through Skype, it's as if there aren't borders anymore.
I write music that sounds complex but isn't. I frankly never think in terms of theory.
I truly thought I was going to be in pop music. And then I joined a choir to meet girls, and everything changed in the first rehearsal.
I don't feel like I'm an artist with a capital 'A.'
A really good poem is full of music.
People in chorus tends to be much more emotional or at least wear their hearts on their sleeve. They are generally the kind to hold hands and cry. It's just a different personality type.
I'm not an atheist, but I'm not a Christian, either.