The New E.E. Cummings Settings (With Video!)

Charles Anthony Silvestri’s beautiful new bride, Pam, hid in the hall of Avery Fisher and captured the dress rehearsal of the June 28 concert. She used the new iPhone (3g s), which did a pretty decent job of capturing the sound and video from such a distance (and low light).

These performances are a little rough around the edges – we nailed them during the concert – but I think they nicely capture the spirit.

Here is the moon is hiding in her hair:

And here is i walked the boulevard:

And here are the texts:

the moon is hiding in her hair

the moon is hiding in
her hair.
The
lily
of heaven
full of all dreams,
draws down.

cover her briefness in singing
close her with intricate faint birds
by daisies and twilights
Deepen her,

Recite
upon her
flesh
the rain’s

pearls singly-whispering.

E.E. Cummings

**********************************************

i walked the boulevard

i walked the boulevard

i saw a dirty child
skating on noisy wheels of joy

pathetic dress fluttering

behind her a mothermonster
with red grumbling face

cluttered in pursuit

pleasantly elephantine

while nearby the father

a thick cheerful man

with majestic bulbous lips
and forlorn piggish hands

joked to a girlish bore

with busy rhythmic mouth
and silly purple eyelids

of how she was with child

E.E. Cummings

Tonight in NYC: The Premiere of Two New E.E. Cummings Pieces

The singers are sounding terrific… I’m so excited! Woo hoo!

If you happen to be attending the concert (8:00 in Avery Fisher) please take a quick snapshot of the stage with your camera phone and post it here. Would love to see what all those singers look like from the seats in the house.

And I’ll try to make a rough video of the new pieces at the dress rehearsal. Totally illegal by Avery Fisher house rules, but you know, it’ll just be between us

On a Jet Plane

Sorry for the absence – I’ve been deep in the cave writing this week, a big piece for Conspirare. I’ll blog about it soon…

In the meantime, I’m off to Kansas, then Boston, then New York for the big DCINY concert a week from this Sunday. I’m ITCHING to hear these two new E.E. Cummings settings that we’ll premiere at the concert. They’re small pieces, miniatures really, but they’re written in a newish harmonic direction for me and I’m excited to see if they work. I’m buying the new iPhone (oh, yes) and if the new pieces don’t completely suck (my writing, not the performance) I’ll try to record a video of the rehearsal and upload it here.

The Minnesota Experience

There’s a terrific cover story in the most recent edition of The Voice, Chorus America’s quarterly magazine. The article covers the Minnesota event (the not-so-gracefully named “Eric Whitacre Extravaganza”) and all that it took to make it happen, from inception to completion. The picture on the cover is from the dress rehearsal of Cloudburst.

Click it here for the article:

It’s a re-post, but here again is that very performance of Cloudburst:

The Sleep Experiment: TOTALLY Coming Together

It’s actually happening! Check it out (preview of the virtual choir around 2:50):

Amazingly, thus far we have twice as many men as women. Ladies, we need you! Please share your voices with the world!

And again, a major, MAJOR shout-out to Scottie. Truly incredible work, my friend.

Just Finished Two New Pieces

I’ve just finished two new pieces for SATB choir and piano called “the moon is hiding in her hair” and “i walked the boulevard.” As you may have guessed from the lack of capital letters, the poetry in both pieces is by E.E. Cummings.

I’m pretty excited to hear these, as I’ve tried a few techniques that I’ve never used before: lots of sparse, open harmonies in the choral writing (there’s hardly a triad to be found, just lots of fourths, fifths and octaves).

Both pieces were commissioned by Distinguished Concerts International New York and will premiere at the June 28 concert in Avery Fischer Hall (NYC). I plan on making them part of a larger set, maybe six or seven E.E. Cummings poems.

Here is a ‘first look’ at page two from each piece (both pieces have piano intros on page one). The poems are posted below.

the moon is hiding in her hair pg 2

i walked the boulevard pg 2

**********************************************

the moon is hiding in her hair

the moon is hiding in
her hair.
The
lily
of heaven
full of all dreams,
draws down.

cover her briefness in singing
close her with intricate faint birds
by daisies and twilights
Deepen her,

Recite
upon her
flesh
the rain’s

pearls singly-whispering.

E.E. Cummings

**********************************************

i walked the boulevard

i walked the boulevard

i saw a dirty child
skating on noisy wheels of joy

pathetic dress fluttering

behind her a mothermonster
with red grumbling face

cluttered in pursuit

pleasantly elephantine

while nearby the father

a thick cheerful man

with majestic bulbous lips
and forlorn piggish hands

joked to a girlish bore

with busy rhythmic mouth
and silly purple eyelids

of how she was with child

E.E. Cummings

Juana Molina

I’m probably a little late to the party, but I’ve just discovered – and completely fallen for – Juana Molina, the Argentinian singer/songwriter. I heard her this morning on the RadioLab podcast and immediately downloaded her two albums, both of which are available on iTunes.

SO beautiful/sensual/hypnotic.

The Seal Lullaby SSA In Print This Summer

Last year, at the request of the terrific Lawrence Children’s Choir I transcribed The Seal Lullaby for three-part treble chorus (SSA). They gave it a beautiful premiere at the National ACDA convention in Oklahoma City.

It will be in print worldwide by July, available in North America from Hal Leonard, and in the rest of the world from Chester Music.

Here’s the first page of the score:

The Seal Lullaby SSA 1st Page

And here’s a live performance of the St. Olaf Chorus performing it in Minneapolis last March (I’m conducting):

New Paradise Lost Track

Hila begged me, so I let her post an unreleased track from Paradise Lost on her new blog. (Heh, heh, just kidding, Hila doesn’t beg, oh sweet Jesus here comes the kick to the head.)

It’s the “Revolution Quintet” from Act I, a very, very rough demo version made with the Pasadena cast. It was a lot of fun to write, because it’s basically all the musical and lyrical themes from What If deconstructed and turned on their heads.

Click it here for Hila’s blog.

Disney Hall Tickets on Sale June 3rd

On August 7th, 2009, I’ll be conducting an epic performance of my choral music with the incredible National Youth Choir of Great Britain. The two-hour plus concert, which will take place on the main stage at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, will feature the following program:

Tordion (Processional, arr. and conducted by Mike Brewer)

Lux Aurumque

Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine

Selections from the Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor (conducted by Mike Brewer)

Water Night

Five Hebrew Love Songs (with string quartet)

A Boy and a Girl

The Stolen Child

•••Intermission•••

Pueblo Sunrise (processional, arr. and conducted by Mike Brewer)
Sleep My Child
What If (with electronica)
The Schuetz Magnificat (conducted by Mike Brewer)
Nox Aurumque
Animal Crackers I
Animal Crackers II
Cloudburst
Sleep

Over 100 of Britain’s finest young singers, all aged 17-25. Nox Aurumque, Sleep My Child and Animal Crackers Vol. II will all be west coast premieres.

There will also be an hour long pre-concert Q&A with me and celebrated poet Charles Anthony Silvestri (Sleep, Leonardo, Lux, Nox). And we’ll both be in the lobby after the concert meeting people and saying hello.

Tickets go on sale June 3rd at 12:00 noon. If you’re thinking of attending, you may want to buy your tickets early – we’re expecting a sold-out show. Tickets range from $19.00 to $49.00, and can be purchased at either TicketMaster or the Disney Hall Box Office.

SO excited! Woo hoo!

Amazing!

Anyone else out there think Parkour should be an Olympic sport? SO exciting to watch.

Oh Yeah…

Look what showed up in the mail today:

(The Grammy, not a crazy mail-order bride).

Woo hoo!

Zombie Haiku

Over at BoingBoing.net they’re giving out a prize for the best zombie haiku, and since I’m a big fan of zombies and haikus, I thought I’d take a crack at it. Until, that is, I saw this submission by a reader named “Ghede”:

rrrr arrrr rrrrr braaaaains rrrr
Graaaaaah unnnnng arrr braaaains rrrrr urrrrg braains
Snow falling on leaves

That may be the funniest thing I’ve read in months. I’m still laughing!

Which reminds me: don’t forget to pick up your copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Oh yes, it’s real. And awesome.

The Killer App

I’m out of my mind with the thrill of technology: I just discovered (and installed) Eucalyptus, the premiere e-book reader for the iPhone. It’s beautiful to look at (professional fonts on pages that look like paper) and the interface is natural and intuitive. You really feel like you are turning the pages of a book.

But best best best of all is that Eucalytus’s available library is everything on Project Gutenberg, the online catalog of books that are public domain and available for free download. That means that for just $9.95 (the cost of the program) you can load your iPhone just about every great work of English literature written before 1920. UNBELIEVEABLE. In less than two minutes I downloaded Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, and the complete works of William Shakespeare. All on my iPhone!

What an incredible time to be alive…

EDIT: Just added Thoreau (Walden) and Goethe (Complete Poems, beautifully translated). I am freaking!

Hila Started a Blog!

Yep, I bugged her and bugged her until she finally created one. And she didn’t even kick me in the head. Yet.

She’s calling it “And All I Want to do is Fly…” which is a reference to a line that her character Exstasis sings in Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings. If you have a few moments, please visit her and encourage her to continue. She has SO much to say, as a performer, as a poet, as a songwriter, as an athlete, and as a human. If we can just get her to keep posting I just know she’ll reveal the secrets of the universe, or at the very least she can explain how she sings everything, and I mean everything from memory, but she still can’t remember where she left her phone. (*Runs from kick to the head*)

Click it here:

And All I Want to do is Fly…

The Sleep Experiment: Starting To Take Shape

Scottie Haines has set up a YouTube channel for us, and he’s compiling every new video that gets posted.

Thus far we’ve got about 20 singers, at least one on a part, and three different conductor tracks. Even just a rough play through of a few of the vids at the the same time convinces me this is going to be incredible. Keep posting those videos, everyone – we need your voices!

And a big, big thank you to Scottie for all the terrific work he’s doing. Woo hoo!

Click it here for the Virtual Choir YouTube Channel.

One-Way Ticket

So I’m working out in the gym this morning when this song starts playing:

It’s from a British band called The Darkness and is called, as you might imagine, “One-Way Ticket.”

I must be completely missing the hipster irony, because as far as I know it is TOTALLY impossible to buy a ‘one-way ticket to Hell and back.’ Isn’t the entire idea of a one-way ticket that once you reach your final destination (in this case Hell), you presumably plan on staying there, and that if you’d like to return (again, from Hell) you’re going to have to purchase another ticket? Sheesh.

That lyric has actually consumed most of my morning. So, you know…  philosophy.

Keyboard Cat In Chinatown

Every so often, the hive-mind that is the internet community will spawn something so totally weird and original, something so random and self-referential and post-post-modern that it’s very existence (and popularity) defies logic. The vast majority of people just won’t get it, but there are always a few morons out there who think this crap is among the funniest and most brilliant works of art ever created.

I am one of those morons.

The Sleep Experiment: REPOST of the Score

Here is the re-post of the individual parts. I ended up using Sam’s engravings. (Big thanks again to everyone who contributed).

A couple more thoughts:

1) No problem if you want to sing with a few friends or even your entire chorus. Just remember, you’ve all got to be synched to the Polyphony recording.

2) If someone would like to record a conductor track, go for it. I’ll record one the next time we do this (when I write an original piece for the virtual choir).

3) I’m learning a lot just watching this process, so when we do this again with the original piece we’ll have all the kinks worked out. For this experiment, don’t sweat it too much. It’s not going to be perfect. Let’s just have fun with it and use it to learn about the next one.

SLEEP-SOPRANOS

SLEEP-ALTOS

SLEEP-TENORS

SLEEP-BASS

The Sleep Experiment: The Sheet Music

Here are the parts… just download your individual part, choose the top or bottom notes in the splits, and sing.

A lot of you asked my why I couldn’t just upload the full score, and the answer is simple: I don’t own the copyright. My great friends at Walton Music, who publish almost all of my earlier catalog, are the sole owners of the copyright. (The copyright is usually the first thing you give up when you publish a piece with another company). I mostly self-publish now so I still own all of my newer pieces. For all of you composers out there, I’ll post soon and specifically address all of the pros and cons of publishing; it’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make.

A bunch of you sent me the extracted parts, and I decided to post the first ones that got to me. My deepest thanks to Martin Gieseking of Germany for engraving these individual parts and sending them so quickly. (Martin’s not the German singer who recorded all nine parts of Lux, but he is a composer.). And a big shout-out to Samuel Hunter, whose parts came in just a few minutes after Martin’s. So sorry to hear about your Grandmother, Sam – all the best to you and your family.

EDIT: I’ve taken down the parts, and will put them back up after I’ve had a chance to review them. Apparently there are a few errors – I didn’t look closely before I posted.

Our Sleep Experiment: The First Brave Soul

Yeah! Give it up for Dameron Growe, the first person to step forward and post a video. And he’s a tenor!

Great job, Dameron!

OMG, OMG, Cool Idea: Part II

I KNEW this would work!

There were a lot of great comments, and now we can address some of the logistical stuff:

1) For the sheet music, can someone with Finale or Sibelius skills (or bow-staff skills) make four separate PDFs of the vocal parts of sleep? One for soprano, one for alto, one for tenor, one for bass. Make sure they are completely separate files, send them to me, and then I can post them here legally. If someone wants to make midi files, just for part learning, totally cool.

2) When you make your video, wear headphones. This was a great idea proposed by both Johnathan and Will.

3) As for tempo, sing along to the Polyphony recording of Sleep, available either on iTunes or streaming from my MySpace site. Use only that recording, or it won’t match up.

4) When you load your video to YouTube, use the words Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir in the title, and in the tags, and include your voice part in the title as well. Also, in the tags, put the exact phrase “soaringleap.com.” We’ll be able to find all of them easily enough.

5) For this experiment, just sing with a healthy, clear sound, and long, beautiful vowels. I know the cutoffs and entrances are going to be all over the place, but this is just the experiment, or as they say in the business world, “proof of concept.” For the next one (the original, premiere piece that I’ll compose) we’ll do it a little bit more like the YouTube Orchestra, and I’ll even make a video of me conducting. If this Sleep experiment goes well, we might be able to get YouTube involved. (Woo Hoo).

All y’all rock.

EDIT: Let’s create a tentative deadline for submission of videos – June 30. That should give everyone time to learn their parts and post their performances.

Oh My God, Oh My God, I Just Had the Coolest Idea!

Today I received a beautiful and impassioned video message from a young singer and composer named Britlin Losee. I was deeply struck by her spirit, and her voice, and her chutzpah. I know I would never have the courage to make something like that and send it to someone I admired.

I asked her if I could post it here, and she graciously agreed.

If you’re not inclined to watch it all the way through, all you need to know is this: around one minute in, she sings the first soprano line of Sleep, all the way through, no breaks. Really lovely and pure voice.

Britlin’s not the first person to do this. One of my very first posts on this site featured Courtney, performing the climax of the same piece:

When I saw Britlin’s video today the idea hit me like a brick: what if hundreds of people did the same thing and then we cut them all together, creating the very first virtual choir? I’m sure you’ve seen the videos out there of people performing all of the parts to a song and then multitracking and cutting them together (like Michael Jackson’s Thriller). Here’s an incredible example, all nine parts of Lux Aurumque performed by a young man in Germany. (I’d love to know his name):

So here is how we do it: Let’s all agree to use the Polyohony recording of Sleep (off of their album Cloudburst); you can buy it from iTunes or stream it from my MySpace page. Try to keep the volume of the Polyphony recording as low as possible in the background, and then record yourself singing your part all the way through, no stopping. Then post it to YouTube.

When we cut it all together the entrances and cutoffs will be a little sloppy, but for this first time that’s all right. We’ll need a lot of people to do this, so don’t be shy, and recruit your friends (especially tenors). If you’re too mortified to sing it alone, find a couple of other people to join you. If it works as well as I think it’s going to, I’ll compose a short new piece just for YouTube, and we will premiere it virtually, with all of you making the virtual choir, people from all over the world alone and together and singing.

THIS WILL TOTALLY WORK. WOO HOO!

EDIT: Some of you don’t have the sheet music… I hadn’t thought of that. It’s easy enough to buy, but let me see if there’s something I can do. In the meantime, anyone have any ideas how we can help those people without a score? Is it possible (or illegal) to shoot a close-up of the sheet music and post it to YouTube?

Marching Band: Genius? Madnesss?

A lot of my music is gets used in marching band shows. In fact, at one point or another all of my music has been played on the field. (I’m not kidding… Leonardo, Lux, Animal Crackers, EVERYTHING. Bands have even marched to A Boy and a Girl). The sole exception is When David Heard. I’ve had a number of requests for it (yes, it’s true), but I always say no – I just can’t imagine people playing that piece and, um, marching at the same time. With sousaphones.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of marching bands, and over the years I have been honored by some incredibly creative shows that included my music. I may have just found the prize-winner, though:

This is either going to be the coolest thing ever, or, or…  madness.

Another Day of Jury Duty

Sitting in the courtroom again today while they choose jurors. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll get picked. (My number was called last today).

I will say this: I’m definitely feeling like a model citizen today. I rode my bike to the subway station, and then rode it another mile from the station to the courthouse. In Los Angeles. And the reason I rode my bike was because Hila needed our only car – a PRIUS – to run some errands.

The smog (or a car, or an earthquake) may kill me on the ride home, but nothing can take away my admittedly smug, tree-hugging, soy-latte-drinking, California-Buddhist smile.