Eric Whitacre

On Friday we closed the 2013 TED conference with a performance of Cloudburst, and by ‘we’ I mean choirs from Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Fullerton, Riverside City College and 30 ‘virtual’ singers beaming in from all over the world. I really have no words to describe how thrilling and electric it was.

There is a long list of people who made it happen; foremost in that list is the extraordinary team at Skype. I’ll be writing about my experience with them in much greater detail in a different blog.

Next is the entire team at TED, over two dozen technicians, directors, lighting designers, sound designers, computer techs, etc. Each and every one of them so friendly, so flexible, and a joy to work with.

Chris Anderson, curator and director of TED, who seems to have an unlimited faith and passion for the new, the artistic and the impossible. A true visionary.

Jonathan Talberg, Rob Istad and John Byun, the respective conductors of the onstage choirs and great friends of mine for well over a decade.

And finally a huge thank you to all the Virtual Singers, each who spent hours and hours rehearsing and troubleshooting their systems, often in the middle of the night. We did it!