My daughter Jessica is the musician in our family: she sings folksongs and opera and frequently writes about music on her blog. In February 2013, during long bus trips through the Jordan mountains as part of the TechWomen delegation – to pass the time, Shahryan and I traded earbuds back and forth, each playing favorite songs stored on our smart phones. Although I am no musician, this blog entry is a gift of music for my friend Shahryan – who lives almost 9,000 miles away in Yemen.
American conductor Eric Whitacre is one of the most popular and performed composers of this generation. His Virtual Choir projects are both inspiring and amazing technically – and also present very good music. The projects are successful artistically and organizationally: for example, in 2012, Whitacre’s “Virtual Choir: Bliss” project was funded on Kickstarter at $122,555 (122% of asking).
In past projects, Eric Whitacre used a worldwide virtual choir singing recorded parts. For the just-released “Cloudburst”, he combined live and virtual choirs.
- Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir – ‘Lux Aurumque’, 2010 YouTube: 3,759,109 Views
- Eric Whitacre: A choir as big as the Internet, 2010 TED Talk: 185 voices from 12 countries
- Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong, 2011 TED Talk: 1,475,838 Views, 2,052 singers from 58 different countries singing “Sleep”
- Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 3, ‘Water Night’, 2012 YouTube: 634,098 Views, 4,000 singers from 73 countries
- Eric Whitacre: Virtual Choir Live, 2013 TED Talk, combining live-in-person and Skype-live choirs, 30 singers from 30 countries: singing “Cloudburst”
The lyrics are from “Cloudburst” by Mexican poet Octavio Paz. I hope you enjoy this music as much as I do.
Images Copyright 2013 by Katy Dickinson
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