Eric Whitacre

The Virtual Youth Choir, in association with UNICEF, will premiere at the opening ceremony of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games on Wednesday 23rd July. The event will be broadcast live and webcast. Eric will conduct the Virtual Youth Choir of 2292 singers from 80 countries across the world and the National Youth Choir of Scotland in front of 40,000 people in legendary Celtic Park stadium and a huge global audience. The choir will sing a special arrangement of “What If” from the musical Paradise Lost .

To find out more about UNICEF’s partnership with the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games to Put Children First right across the world go to www.unicef.org.uk/glasgow14.

Check out these press releases for more information about the event.

Glasgow 2014 First Commonwealth Games to broadcast to every nation and territory

Glasgow 2014’s opening ceremony to create a record-breaking “Window on World” for city

What is the Virtual Choir?

The Virtual Choir is a global phenomenon, creating a user-generated choir that brings together singers from around the world and their love of music in a new way through the use of technology.
Whether singing at home, at college, at work or anywhere they can connect to the internet, they record their videos which are synchronised and combined into one single performance to create the Virtual Choir.

At TED 2013, Eric conducted a real-time Live Virtual Choir, performing live from 28 countries around the globe, alongside a 100 person-strong choir on stage, streamed live through Skype.

In 2013, Eric teamed-up with Disney to produce a song, “Glow”, written especially for World of Color – Winter Dreams show which premiered at Disney California Adventure® Park, Disneyland® Resort, Anaheim, California. 1473 singers, representing all 50 American States, submitted recordings, most of which were chosen, to be part of the World of Color Honor Choir.