Eric Whitacre (b. 1970)

Now in his mid-thirties, Eric Whitacre has already accomplished as composer, conductor, lecturer, and clinician what can for others occupy a lifetime. A native of the American West, Whitacre was educated at the University of Nevada — where the reluctant undergrad was persuaded to join the college choir, a decision that changed his life — and later, at Juilliard in New York. Since then, his reputation has gained international proportions. 

This dynamic young musician has conducted — and dazzled — hundreds of ensembles, not only in the U.S. but in Europe, Asia, and Australia. After a concert of the Kammerchor “Ars antiqua” in Sulzbacher, Germany, a critic referred to Whitacre as “the most promising of the young generation of U.S. composers.” He has held several positions, among them Composer-in-Residence for the Pacific Chorale (Orange County, CA) and Director of the Narashino Wind Consortium in Japan. 

His choral and symphonic compositions have garnered commissions and scholarly attention as well as awards from the Barlow International Foundation, the American Choral Directors, and the American Composers Forum. In December 2004, ASCAP recognized a stunningly successful new stage work by Whitacre, Paradise Lost: Opera Electronica, with two awards: its first annual ASCAP/Harold Arlen Best Song-writing Team Award to Whitacre and librettist David Noroña; and its Richard Rogers New Horizon Award to Whitacre as “the most promising new voice in musical theater.” Featuring Whitacre’s wife, soprano Hila Plitmann, in the leading role, Paradise Lost is described on the worldwide web as “a cutting edge musical combining trance, ambient and techno electronica with choral, cinematic, and operatic traditions.”

The American Record Guide placed Whitacre’s first recording, “The Music of Eric Whitacre,” on its list of ten best classical albums for 1997. “Water Night” (1995), a short piece for a cappella choir on a poem by Octavio Paz, is an all-time top-selling choral publication. Collectively, his published works have sold more than 350,000 copies. “His is a compositional language,” writes Dr. Bruce Mayhall, “that arrests the postmodern listener and penetrates to the very center of the spirit….” Whitacre and fellow composers Steven Bryant, Jonathan Newman, and James Bonney have founded the BSM International consortium, whose mission is “to enrich the repertoire with music unbound by traditional thought or idiomatic cliché.”