Eric Whitacre

Whitacre is that rare thing, a modern composer who is both popular and original. - The Daily Telegraph, London

Eric Whitacre is one of the most popular and performed composers of our time, a distinguished conductor and public speaker. Coming to classical music relatively late in life when he joined his college choir in Las Vegas, the first work that Eric Whitacre sang – Mozart’s Requiem - changed his life. Inspired to compose, his first piece  Go, Lovely, Rose, was completed at the age of 21. He went on to the Juilliard School (New York), earned his Master of Music degree and studied with Pulitzer Prize and Oscar-winning composer, John Corigliano.

Countless recordings feature music written by Eric Whitacre, but his first album as both composer and conductor on Decca/Universal, Light & Gold, won a Grammy in 2012, reaped unanimous five star reviews and became the no. 1 Classical Album in the US and UK charts within a week of a release. Eric’s second album, Water Night, will be released on Decca in Spring 2012 and will feature many world premiere recordings.

He has written for the  London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Chanticleer, Julian Lloyd Webber and the Philharmonia Orchestra, Rundfunkchor Berlin and The King’s Singers among others. His musical, Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, won both the ASCAP Harold Arlen award and the Richard Rodgers Award, and earned 10 nominations at the Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Awards. A versatile musician, he has also worked with legendary film composer, Hans Zimmer, co-writing the Mermaid Theme for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. In 2011, Eric conducted the winning entries of the Abbey Road 80th Anniversary Anthem Competition, recording the London Symphony Orchestra and his professional choir, the Eric Whitacre Singers, in Abbey Road Studio 1.

Eric’s ground-breaking Virtual Choir, Lux Aurumque, received over a million views on YouTube in just 2 months (now approaching 3 million), featuring 185 singers from 12 different countries. Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 2.0, Sleep, was released in April 2011 and involved over 2,000 voices from 58 countries. Virtual Choir 3 received 3746 submissions from 73 countries and is currently in production for launch in April 2012.

As a conductor, Eric Whitacre has performed across the world with orchestras, choirs and bands and he gives regular guest workshops in addition to his Soaring Leap initiative: a dynamic, one-day workshop for singers, conductors and composers to read, rehearse and perform several of Eric’s works, digging deep into the poetry and exploring the compositional tools. An exceptional orator, he was honoured to address the U.N. Leaders programme and give a TED Talk in March 2011 which earned the first full standing ovation of the conference.  He has addressed audiences at Duke & Harvard, The Economist, Seoul Digital Forum and JCDA Conference in Tokyo. Eric was appointed Composer in Residence at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University, UK, in September 2011.

Many of Eric Whitacre’s works have entered the standard choral and symphonic repertories and have become the subject of scholarly works and doctoral dissertations. Whitacre has received composition awards from the Barlow International Composition Competition, the ACDA and the American Composers Forum. In 2001, he became the youngest recipient ever awarded the coveted Raymond C. Brock commission by the ACDA. Eric Whitacre was born in Nevada and currently lives in London with his wife (Grammy award winning soprano, Hila Plitmann) and their son.