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| Eric Whitacre (Photo by Marc Royce) |
I ran across a very interesting interview with Eric Whitacre, an American composer/conductor currently living in England (Cambridge University). I know my colleagues with the Berkshire Chorale are familiar with his works since we performed his popular Sleep at our last concert.
During the interview he discusses a wide range of topics including:
• Fainting choristers, the four styles of fainting
• Vomiting choristers, not to be too graphic, but the word “projectile” was used
• Conducting, gestures he’s stolen from other conductors
• The Virtual Choir, its history and future
• Technology, he is a self-described geek
• Mullets, reliving the 80’s
• His desire to be a roadie for Depeche Mode
Mr. Whitacre’s embrace of technology is, in my opinion, one of the reasons his music has been at the top of the classical charts and even occasionally spills over to pop charts. After all, to attract today’s audiences, today’s promoter must use the electronic media that is so much a part of contemporary life. Eric is handsome, personable, and real, a perfect candidate to take advantage of this audio/visual electronic age.
The interview took place on Second Life this past Sunday. For those of you not familiar with Second Life, it is a virtual world populated by literally millions of people from around the world, each of which is represented as an avatar. An avatar is a graphical representation that has been created by its owner to show the world how he/she wants the world to see him if he had a chance to re-create his looks. Maddox Dupont created Eric’s avatar and did a heck of a good job matching the maestro’s likeness. I too am a member of the SL community and I can tell you first hand, getting an avatar to look exactly as you envision it is a difficult task.
This interview is a great example of the global scope of SL; the interviewer, Paisley Beebe, is sitting in her home in Sidney, Australia and Eric is sitting in his home in England. The interview took place in real-time and shown on-screen on a talk show type set. The audience is populated by avatars, all being operated by real people sitting at their computers around the world. Sometimes we forget there is a real person behind every avatar on the screen.
The bad news: this interview is 45 minutes long! The entire video is over an hour long and contains commercials (yes, Second Life is very much like real life) and a full-length performance of the Virtual Choir singing Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque.
I presume that, unlike me, most of you actually have a life and can’t dedicate that much time to listen to an interview, I completely understand. I suggest that you click on the link below then once the video loads use your mouse to randomly select vignettes of the interview.
http://vodpod.com/watch/5064737-eric-whitacre-talks-music-snowcrash-vomiting-choristers-and-the-virtual-choir-
Eric Whitacre is currently recruiting vocalists to sing in his Virtual Choir – all voice parts and all ability levels (everybody will be included). His goal is to have a record-breaking 900 voices singing Sleep. Eric says that one guy actually submitted videos for all four voice parts, and, according to Eric, the guy did a pretty good job on all of them! With less than a month to go it is doubtful the goal will be reached, however, if most singers procrastinate as I do, it could be a very busy couple of weeks coning up for YouTube. For more information go to http://ericwhitacre.com/the-virtual-choir.
Now that the bulk of my seasonal singing is behind me, the Berkshire Chorale concert and another out-of-town gig (just a couple of church-related performances to go), I intend to submit a recording of Sleep to The Virtual Choir to be included in their record-breaking attempt. It seems that the record attempt is of secondary importance at this point. The important thing is to get a bunch of people together from all over the world and unite them in song, a beautiful, calming song. There couldn’t be a better time of year to have Whitacre’s dream come to fruition.
I hope you all have a stress-free Christmas season and get to enjoy the holiday to its fullest.
Peace,
Don
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