Jump to content

...

Recommended Posts

Well said karelm.  I'm a fan and know many people deeply touched by his music.  Yes, he is a favorite target for the more cynical and pretentious in the classical world, but he is an earnestly passionate guy beyond any legitimate personal criticism and whatever you think of his music, you can't deny that he's doing a lot to bring young people into the fold.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, karelm said:

In the youtube Proms clip he jokes about how many cell phones go off normally during Proms performances but here they must wait for his cue.  I can just imagine how everyone was patiently just watching him to not screw up.

 

I was at that concert @karelm and in fact it was my first taste of Eric Whitacre's music.  I had downloaded the Deep Field app beforehand and you are so right about patiently watching him and hoping he would make it obvious when to come in!  It was a truly magical experience as the lights in the hall had been dimmed and the choir filled the aisles all around the auditorium.

 

Since that concert I have seen Eric Whitacre three more times in London, once again at the Royal Albert Hall (again with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), once at Milton Court with the BBC Singers and most recently at St. James's in Piccadilly with the Eric Whitacre Singers.  He comes across as a genuinely nice person and always seems more than happy to promote the works of other composers alongside his own, the likes of John Powell and Laura Mvula among them.  I was very taken with his I Fall, part of a larger work written for the death of a dear friend, and hope that it is recorded soon.

 

One of my favourite pieces of his is Goodnight Moon.  Who would have thought that a woman singing the words of a children's bedtime story book could be so moving?  This recording features the LSO and Eric Whitacre's lovely wife, Hila Plitmann.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Omen II said:

 

I was at that concert @karelm and in fact it was my first taste of Eric Whitacre's music.  I had downloaded the Deep Field app beforehand and you are so right about patiently watching him and hoping he would make it obvious when to come in!  It was a truly magical experience as the lights in the hall had been dimmed and the choir filled the aisles all around the auditorium.

 

Since that concert I have seen Eric Whitacre three more times in London, once again at the Royal Albert Hall (again with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), once at Milton Court with the BBC Singers and most recently at St. James's in Piccadilly with the Eric Whitacre Singers.  He comes across as a genuinely nice person and always seems more than happy to promote the works of other composers alongside his own, the likes of John Powell and Laura Mvula among them.  I was very taken with his I Fall, part of a larger work written for the death of a dear friend, and hope that it is recorded soon.

 

One of my favourite pieces of his is Goodnight Moon.  Who would have thought that a woman singing the words of a children's bedtime story book could be so moving?  This recording features the LSO and Eric Whitacre's lovely wife, Hila Plitmann.

 

 

My god, what a voice.  That is a beautiful work, thanks for posting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...

You might enjoy this performance of Eric Whitacre's Sleep by the vocal ensemble VOCES8, recorded at St. Stephen Walbrook in the City of London.  Lovely stuff.

 

 

In other Whitacre news, his new work The Sacred Veil will receive its UK premiere in October this year (I believe there will be two concerts at St. John's Smith Square).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

I went to the European premiere of Whitacre's The Sacred Veil at St. John's Smith Square in Westminster last night.  It was a very moving experience, especially for anyone who has lost someone close to them.  The piece tells the story of the courtship, love, loss and search for solace of Charles Anthony Silvestri (Whitacre's best friend and writer of the words to many of his works, e.g. Sleep) following the death of his wife Julie from ovarian cancer in 2005.  The work is in twelve movements as follows:

 

  1. The Veil Opens
  2. In a Dark and Distant Year
  3. Home
  4. Magnetic Poetry
  5. Whenever There Is Birth
  6. I'm Afraid
  7. I Am Here
  8. Delicious Times
  9. One Last Breath
  10. Dear Friends
  11. You Rise, I fall
  12. Child of Wonder

 

Such a premise runs the risk of bathos or coming across as quite maudlin (dare I say especially for a stiff-upper-lip British audience), but it really was outstanding in both the words and the music.  Some of the words were taken from Julia Silvestri's own diary entries and e-mails (Dear Friends in particular I found heartbreaking).  The words were projected on a screen behind the choir which was a neat idea, as it allowed the audience to pay full attention to the choir and musicians (pianist Christopher Glynn and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler) instead of following the words in the programme.  When it finished a couple of the choir members were wiping tears from their eyes.  If you get the chance to see this piece performed, I heartily recommend it.  It will be recorded for release next year on Signum Records.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/31/2018 at 10:13 PM, Omen II said:

 

 

 

Wow, that is incredibly sweet. Reminds me of a song you'd hear in a late 80s / early 90s animated children's film. Beautiful string arrangement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...

Eric Whitacre's The Sacred Veil was released last week and most of the selections can be sampled on YouTube.  See my post earlier in the thread for more details about the piece.  This is the first of the twelve movements, entitled The Veil Opens.

 

 

He also wrote a piece called Sing Gently for a virtual choir to sing during lockdown.  More than 17,000 people from 129 different countries contributed and it's really quite moving.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, KK said:

It's a pity @Dixon Hill is not around so much these days, because I think I'm finally starting to come around to Whitacre:

 

I tried singing along with this, but these sustained dissonances and arrhythmic (?) patterns are challenging!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Not my cuppa tea.  I would say Caroline Shaw is a contemporary composer whose work for choir is of a much more interesting personality, though @KK will probably still think me a wannabe Brooklyn hipster ;)

 

 

 

 

Haha. Well, I've historically not been a big Whitacre fan (as my past posts here will testify), but he does have some real inspired moments. Lately, I've just been admiring his musicianship and how he works with others in the industry. I think he's a very articulate and an inspiring crossover figure between the larger public and the classical world, in the same spirit of Carl Sagan and Neil deGrass Tyson types.

 

I also really like Shaw, though she also has a certain bag of tricks, especially in her string writing, that sometimes wears me out.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, KK said:

 

I've historically not been a big Whitacre fan (as my past posts here will testify), but he does have some real inspired moments. Lately, I've just been admiring his musicianship and the and how he works with others in the industry. I think he's a very articulate and an inspiring crossover figure between the larger public and the classical world, in the same spirit of Carl Sagan and Neil deGrass Tyson types.

 

I also really like Shaw, though she also has a certain bag of tricks, especially in her string writing, that sometimes wears me out.

 

And I think I prefer the Brooklyn you over the version of you in my head, where you live on a Minnesota farm :p

 


Oh yeah I do like Eric Whitacre the person!  Very cool and interesting dude.

 

Both Shaw and Whitacre stand out in their generation of “serious” composers for being unabashedly emotional in their writing I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yea, definitely. And I'm glad they've found as much success as they did. Goes to show how starved people still are for tonal music, even in this post-post-modernist world (whatever that means).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.