Eric Whitacre

Eric Whitacre (born 1970) is an American composer of choral and wind band music and electronica. He has also served as a guest conductor for ensembles throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife, soprano Hila Plitmann, and son.

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 music 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.


Music
In the past decade, Whitacre has become a prominent classical composer, particularly for educational bands and choirs. His style is marked by eclecticism, with dense, hyperromantic chordal structures mixed with light, modernist touches. He has written a multitude of choral works, some of which utilize texts by E. E. Cummings and Mexican poet Octavio Paz. His Water Night, translated from the original poem of the same name, is very popular among high school and college vocal ensembles across the United States. Also popular are his settings of texts by Cummings: "i thank You God for most this amazing day", "i will wade out", and "hope, faith, life, love."

The text for one of his choral works, Five Hebrew Love Songs, was composed at Whitacre's request by his Israeli wife, Hila Plitmann, a fellow Juilliard graduate, while on tour in Germany before they were married. Another of his works, Sleep, was originally a setting of Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening". After extensive legal battles, he was forced to discontinue use of Frost's text, and turned to poet and friend Charles Anthony Silvestri to craft a new text to fit the already existing music, including the presence of key words in the poem. Whitacre no longer intends to use Frost's poem with this music, saying that the original setting "no longer exists."

Whitacre premiered his first work for stage, Paradise Lost, 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 will play in Pasadena in July and August 2007 with full cast, taiko drums, dj, anime, and flying rigs.


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 late June of 2007, Venice and Florence, Italy will host the first Venice Whitacre Festival, which will include a fully-staged performance of Paradise Lost.

Outside of his freelance work, 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".[citation needed] BCM International's online discussion forum, which features participation by all four BCM members and others, dissects various topics related to music.


Works

Brass ensemble
Lux Aurumque

Concert band
Equus
Ghost Train Triptych
The Ride
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)

Choral
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 * (poem 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)
She Weeps Over Rahoon ++ (poem by James Joyce)
Sleep * ** ++ (poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri)
This Marriage ** (poem by Jalal al-Din Rumi)
Three Flower Songs
I Hide Myself * ** (poem by Emily Dickinson)
With a Lily in Your Hand * ** (poem by Federico García Lorca)
Go, Lovely Rose * ** (poem by Edmund Waller)
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 * ** ++
When David Heard * ** (from II Samuel 18:33)
Water Night * ** ++ (poem by Octavio Paz; translated by Muriel Rukeyser)
Winter + (poem by Edward Esch)
* collected on the album Eric Whitacre: The Complete A Cappella Works, 1991-2001 (Arsis Audio 2003), performed by the BYU Singers conducted by Ronald Staheli.

** collected on the album Cloudburst and Other Choral Works (Hyperion Records 2006), performed by Polyphony, conducted by Stephen Layton.

+ collected on the album Winter (Clarion 2005), performed by The Choral Project

++ collected on the album Water and Light (Clarion 2003), performed by The Choral Project


String ensemble
Lux Aurumque
Water Night

Theatre
Paradise Lost: Opera Electronica

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