Whitacre: Sleep

Eric Whitacre (b. 1970), accomplished composer, conductor and lecturer, is one of the most popular and performed composers of his generation. His published works – of which “Sleep,” “Cloudburst,” “Lux Aurumque” and “Water Night” are among the most popular in the modern repertoire – have sold over a million copies worldwide. Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, Eric’s cutting-edge musical, has won the ASCAP Harold Arlen award, the prestigious Richard Rodgers Award and 10 Ovation Award nominations. In the US he is greeted with “rock star adulation” (New York Times) and his Virtual Choir projects have given him a worldwide following on YouTube, marking a new digital age for classical music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7o7BrlbaDs). In 2010 he signed to Decca, and is published by Chester Music.

Light and Gold is a mixture of works from the Whitacre catalogue alongside three World Premiere recordings of new pieces, all of them freshly recorded for the occasion. It's the perfect gateway through which new listeners can experience the allure of Whitacre's music for the first time, while giving existing fans pristine new recordings of some of his most successful pieces, tailored by the composer himself. "This album is the first time that I've ever conducted on record my interpretations of my own pieces," Whitacre explains. "The new pieces haven't been recorded before. Previous recordings of the older works have always been nice, but they've never been exactly what I was hoping they would be. That's the most interesting part for me; it's finally a chance to say it the way I'd like to say it." The pieces on the disc are performed by the British chamber choir, Laudibus, alongside Whitacre’s newly-created vocal group, the Eric Whitacre Singers.

Eric Whitacre’s dedication to the beauty of sound, paired with exquisite texts, results in a poetic combination that creates a unique sonic experience.

These works are existential choral moments, beautifully crafted, and harmonised to express a compressed moment in time. Such sublime sonorities transcend descriptions such as ‘warm’, ‘glistening’ or ‘shimmering’, although these features of his choral works do suggest affinities with the sound worlds of Arvo Pärt or John Tavener, for instance.

However, Whitacre’s fluid lines and blossoming harmonies give his music its own highly personal and irresistible magic.

“The only fully professional church choir in Canada, and, clearly, an energetic and inspiring team.” BBC Music Magazine

Eric Whitacre has a sure instinct when it comes to writing music beyond any kind of avant-gardism in the 21st century: he is representative of a generation of composers who consider tonality and music’s accessibility a crucial feature of their works. The Junges Vokalensemble Hannover translates this instinct into sound, and unfolds the compositions’ colourfulness with an exceptional level of artistic mastery.

The works are written with the clear ideals of performability and feasibility in the composer’s mind, making Whitacre’s music particularly interesting to ambitioned non-professional choirs such as the Junges Vokalensemble Hannover. Probably the best-known of Whitacre’s works recorded on this disc is his Lux Aurumque. This work was composed in 2001 and sets to music the poem Light and Gold by the American poet Edward Esch, a meditation on the birth of Christ and the light. Hope, Faith, Life, Love..., Cloudburst, and Five Hebrew Love Songs are also recorded on the present disc.

In Music for Pieces of Wood, Joe Beribak, sitting in the center of a semicircle, begins to strike the first pattern. Joe will maintain this pattern, unflinchingly, for the entire duration of the piece. Katy, Jessica, Derek and Eddie contribute all of the sinuous and minimalist variation which they weave into filaments of sound and rhythm as if all five musicians were one person. Smoke & Mirrors takes us on many journeys in this album. These are refreshingly fully-developed works, each very different from the others, each with its own story. As a whole, these pieces illustrate the breadth of contemporary classical music written for percussionists, as well as the flexibility and virtuosity of Smoke & Mirrors. World class and sophisticated as this ensemble is, these musicians retain and communicate the sheer joy we experienced when banging pots and pans as two-, and three-year olds. Do you remember your own pleasure making a racket as a kid? Smoke & Mirrors: Katalin La Favre, Jessica Cameron, Joe Beribak, Edward Hong and Derek Tywoniuk have never forgotten it.

We captured this recording with a single AKG C 24 stereo microphone in the glorious acoustics of Zipper Hall. We recorded each piece live to tape with no editing, to create the most lifelike performance possible. Rather than worry about how they would perform without the benefit of edits to camouflage mistakes, the members of Smoke & Mirrors loved the idea, embracing our concept that this recording represent a live concert experience.

Conducted by Christopher Bell, Chicago’s Grant Park Chorus, “as fine a symphony chorus as any to be found anywhere in the nation” (Chicago Tribune), makes its a cappella CD debut with an all-American program of eight imaginative, moving, and sometimes whimsical works written between 1975 and 2005, including four world-premiere recordings.

Bell has fans on both sides of the Atlantic. The Ulster-born chorus master also commands the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, Royal Scottish National Orchestra Junior Chorus, and Belfast Philharmonic Choir.

The chorus made its commercial recording debut performing with the Grant Park Orchestra on the 2011 Cedille Records release The Pulitzer Project, which attracted international attention (Cedille Records CDR90000125). Chicago’s New City said the CD “spectacularly showcased” the chorus’s “remarkable transparency and flexibility.”

A new and intriguing sampler features a selection of pieces from Hyperion’s extensive and varied choral collection. This disc seeks to give a flavour of the contemporary choral music recorded by Hyperion over the last decade. Whilst on one level it can stand alone as a tribute to the beauty of its composers’ writing and choirs’ singing, it also lifts the lid on the albums from which the tracks are drawn. A perfect introduction to the magic new worlds of sound that await the listener.