The Minnesota Experience
June 9, 2009
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:
Awesome!
Awesome article, Eric!!! Remember, you can never come to Texas too often.
I like the giant sugar cubes on the back drop.
)
And here I thought that “The Eric Whitacre Extravaganza” was such a nice subtle title. That performance- beginning to end- was the most electrifying concert I have ever seen.
YAY!! I’m totally on that cover!!! It was such an amazing song to perform with sooo many people! 350 or something like that… I think it’s time for you to come back to Minnesota and have a reunion concert with the High School Choir, but this time the High School singers should get to sing Leonardo Dreams.
And go lovely rose. But as long as you come back sometime in the future, that’s all that matters!
Wow, the video was REALLY good! I liked it a lot!
Just saying this (even though I highly doubt you’ll care) but I think that if you decide to do another YouTube Virtual Choir Experiment that we should ‘Water Night’. Mainly because it’s challenging but also beautiful at the same time.
I think it would be amazing!
If not that then do ‘A Boy and A Girl’ because that song actually got me to cry! And I don’t usually cry to choral pieces so…that would be sweet!
Just an idea!
You ROCK!!!! \m/
I definitely second Eli’s notion as far as our reunion is concerned. I also think we should sing the arrangement of “Sleep, My Child”.
Cheers!
Eric- did we ever tell you that we considered “Eric Whitacre Extravaganza” for about 2 seconds as the title for the Denver show? Then we chuckled and moved on.
That performance of Cloudburst is INCREDIBLE — looking forward to having you back out in Feb.
Mr. Whitacre,
I’m looking to get a conducting baton and engraved case as a gift for our retiring choir director of our hight school in honor of all the students he has helped through his years. I was wondering what kind you use? Could you provide me with this information? We want to give him something really nice!
-Andrew
I was on pandora radio yesterday (a website that plays music simalair to an artist/song you type in) and i had typed in your name. One of the songs it played was Little Tree for Wind Ensemble. However, it started playing this song, I can’t tell, but it could be this performance.
My friend was in this choir. He couldn’t stop talking about the weekend, and it sounded like he had a wonderful experience. I wish I could have been there for the live performance, but this is a wonderful recording. Thanks for sharing the vid.
Fantastic piece! I would love to hear this in person.