Eric Whitacre

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Eric Whitacre

Born 2 January 1970
Residence Los Angeles, California
Nationality American
Education University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Juilliard School, New York
Occupation composer
Spouse soprano Hila Plitmann
Website
http://www.ericwhitacre.com

Eric Whitacre (born 2 January 1970[1]) is an American composer of choral and wind band music and electronic music. He has also served as a guest conductor for ensembles throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas.

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[edit] Musical background

Whitacre began his musical training while an undergraduate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he studied composition with avant garde Ukrainian composer Virko Baley and choral conducting with David Weiller. It was here that he wrote his Ghost Train triptych for concert band. Whitacre received a Master's degree at the Juilliard School with composition studies under both John Corigliano and David Diamond.[2]

[edit] Music

In the past decade, Whitacre has become a prominent composer for educational concert band and choral music. Some of his choral works are especially popular among high school and college vocal ensembles across the United States.

Whitacre premiered his first work for stage, Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, in 2004 at California State University, Northridge, one year after premiering the work's musical suite in Berlin, Germany in the summer of 2003. The show is only distantly related to Milton's Paradise Lost. The music of this opera is a mixture of many different styles of music including trance, classical, electronica, and traditional opera. Paradise Lost premiered at the Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena in July and August 2007 with full cast, taiko drums, DJ, anime, and flying rigs.

[edit] Musical Style

Whitacre is probably best known for his choral works, however both his choral and instrumental styles are immediately recognizable, namely by his signature "Whitacre chords." These are often seventh or ninth chords, with or without suspended seconds and fourths. Perhaps his most famous chord is a root-position major triad with a suspended major second and/or perfect fourth. Whitacre makes frequent use of quartal, quintal and secundal harmonies, and is also known for his use of unconventional chord progressions. Rhythm is also an important aspect in many of his pieces, especially his pieces for wind band, utilizing mixed, complex, and/or compound meters. His pieces are also known to include frequent meter changes and unusual rhythmic patterns. Another trademark of Whitacre's pieces is the use of aleatoric and indeterminate sections, as well as unusual score instructions involving, in some cases, hand actions and/or props. His style is often compared to that of Morten Lauridsen, albeit a bit more modern.

[edit] Related projects

Whitacre's music—particularly his music for choir—has inspired the creation of a number of national and international music festivals. In July 2004, the Sydney Opera House hosted the first annual Eric Whitacre Wind Symphony Festival. In June 2007, Venice and Florence, Italy hosted the first Venice Whitacre Festival.

Whitacre is a founding member of the consortium BCM International, a quartet of composers consisting of himself, Steven Bryant, Jonathan Newman, and James Bonney, who, according to their mission statement, aspire to "enrich the wind ensemble repertoire with music unbound by traditional thought or idiomatic cliché".

[edit] Works

[edit] Brass ensemble

  • Lux Aurumque

[edit] Concert band

  • Equus
  • Ghost Train Triptych
    • Ghost Train
    • At the Station
    • Motive Revolution
  • Godzilla Eats Las Vegas!
  • Noisy Wheels of Joy
  • October
  • Sleep (Choral Transcription)
  • Lux Aurumque (Choral Transcription, transposed a semitone lower from C-Sharp Minor to C Minor)
  • Cloudburst (Choral Transcription)

[edit] Choral

  • Animal Crackers (3 poems by Ogden Nash)
  • A Boy and A Girl (poem by Octavio Paz)
  • Cloudburst (poem by Octavio Paz)
  • Five Hebrew Love Songs (poem by Hila Plitmann)
  • Her Sacred Spirit Soars (poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
  • Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine (libretto by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
  • Little Birds (poem by Octavio Paz)
  • little tree (poem by e. e. cummings)
  • Lux Aurumque (poem by Edward Esch; translated into Latin by Charles Anthony Silvestri) (also set for male chorus)
  • She Weeps Over Rahoon (poem by James Joyce)
  • Sleep (originally a setting of Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening"; for copyright reasons the published version uses a specially-written text by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
  • The Stolen Child (poem by William Butler Yeats)
  • This Marriage (poem by Jalal al-Din Rumi)
  • Three Flower Songs
  • Three Songs of Faith (poems by e. e. cummings)
    • i will wade out
    • hope, faith, life, love
    • i thank You God for most this amazing day[3]
  • When David Heard (from II Samuel 18:33)
  • Water Night (poem by Octavio Paz; translated by Muriel Rukeyser)
  • Winter (poem by Edward Esch)

[edit] String ensemble

  • Lux Aurumque
  • Water Night

[edit] Theatre

  • Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, an opera featuring electronic, world, and orchestral instruments; classical singers; and many different styles of music.

[edit] Other arrangements

  • Rak HaHatchala (Only the Beginning) [aka Five Hebrew Love Songs]; for soprano voice, solo violin, piano

[edit] References

  1. ^ CD booklet for Cloudburst and other choral works, Hyperion Records CDA67543 http://www.hyperion-records.com/details/67543.asp
  2. ^ Biography at http://www.ericwhitacre.com
  3. ^ "most this" is correct; see for the full text http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/03/cdisalvo/cummings1/day.html.

[edit] External Links