Eric Whitacre

Presenting the final two concerts of the ‘Open to the World’ concert series, Eric joins Bel Canto Choir and talented guest artists  at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic for a programme featuring works and arrangements by Whitacre including Fly to Paradise,  Lux Aurumque, Glow and Hurt, as well as the first performances of the revised version of The Boy Who Laughed at… continued

California’s largest mass sing – Big Sing California on Saturday July 21 – inspired thousands of singers across the state to join together in song. Margaret Ecker wrote of her experience: But what exactly comprised the awesomeness? I couldn’t stop thinking about it, trying to figure it out. To say that deep breathing calmed our… continued

Eric’s sacred choral music is the focus of this article in The Economist’s June/July 1843 magazine. Read the full piece here.

“Whitacre works in a variety of forms, but he is best known for his choral music, and Saturday’s concert, which Whitacre conducted with minimalist grace, featured pieces that employed the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus in ways both conventional and purely atmospheric.” Read the full review on TulsaWorld.com.

“Yet the most dramatic and interesting composition of the five was artist-in-residence Eric Whitacre’s “I Fall,” a West Coast premiere and part of a larger work-in-progress, “The Sacred Veil.” As led by Whitacre, “I Fall” had the voices sliding upward in microtones, then downward ever so slightly, eventually falling deep into the bass section as… continued

Ahead of his performances in Hong Kong next week, Eric has spoken to Interlude about his composition techniques, inspirations and more. Read the full article on the Interlude website.

WBOY covers the inaugural West Virginia High School Choral Festival. Watch on WBOY.com.

“The highlight of the afternoon was Whitacre’s breakthrough choral piece Cloudburst, sung here by the combined forces of the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Chorus and conducted from memory by Whitacre, spotlit in the centre of the stage. Written when he was only 21, it sets a text adapted from Octavio Paz about rain coming to a… continued

“The highlight of this concert was the premiere of ‘Deep Field’ for which we were required to download an interactive app. Deep Field is inspired by the first images produced by the Hubble Telescope, infinite galaxies containing billions of planets millions of light years away. To evoke this – where space is stretched – strings… continued

“The quality of the music-making, the ambiance and the involvement of the audience waves a particular flag for the future of contemporary music in many people’s eyes.” **** review, Bachtrack

Which conductor of yester-year do you most wish you could have worked with? What single thing would improve the format of the classical concert? What’s the first record you bought? What do you sing in the shower? Just some of the questions Eric answered in the most recent edition of Facing the Music.

Follow his appearance at the Oxford Union, Eric spoke to the Oxford Culture Review about Paradise Lost, classical music as a genre and looking forward to what’s next.