Eric Whitacre

Teenage dreams of becoming a rock star melted away when Eric Whitacre, born in 1970, joined his college choir at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The Grammy Award-winning Whitacre can’t have any regrets, taking his place among the most popular and frequently performed of all contemporary classical composers. His abiding love for the sound of massed voices can be heard in sublime works for choir or vocal ensemble, hallmarked by multilayered harmonies that change almost imperceptibly between individual voice parts and kaleidoscopic contrasts of block chords. The Whitacre choral style explores the borderlands between sound and silence, and has evolved from “Cloudburst” (1991-95), an exquisite setting for eight-part choir and percussion of words by Octavio Paz, through works such as “Water Night” (1995), the heart-rending motet “When David Heard” (1999) and “Sleep” (1999-2000). His online Virtual Choir project forms vast cosmopolitan choirs from homemade recordings of such classics as “Lux aurumque” (2000), “Sleep” and “Deep Field” (2015). Whitacre’s art covers 21st-century concerns of love, loss and grief, strands woven together in The Sacred Veil (2018), a 12-movement prayer for choir, cello and piano.