This disc was a bestseller straight out of the box, one of a precious few collections of new music by a contemporary composer of which that might be said. Eric Whitacre is a fifth-generation Nevadan who couldn't read music when he enrolled at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. On his first day in the choir, which he joined because of some pretty girls in the soprano section, they rehearsed the Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem -- and, says Whitacre, "My life was profoundly changed on that day, and I became a choir geek of the ...
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This disc was a bestseller straight out of the box, one of a precious few collections of new music by a contemporary composer of which that might be said. Eric Whitacre is a fifth-generation Nevadan who couldn't read music when he enrolled at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. On his first day in the choir, which he joined because of some pretty girls in the soprano section, they rehearsed the Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem -- and, says Whitacre, "My life was profoundly changed on that day, and I became a choir geek of the highest order." He began to write choral music that drew on the styles of the man who became his teacher, John Corigliano, and on the minimalist choral works of Arvo Pärt and John Tavener without sounding much like any of them. His music is marked by unusual choral effects including, most characteristically, a fleeting, shimmering use of dissonance, with sequences of what might be called micro-resolutions. The music is accessible to any listener, consonant but not really tonal, and...
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