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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Eric Whitacre: Cloudburstand other choral works
“Mightily effective, it’s superbly performed” BBC Music Magazine “Unmissable” Classic FM Magazine “Impeccably performed” Fanfare “Here’s a CD to put the hype back into Hyperion … beautiful” The Times | | | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Eric Whitacre - Choral Music
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 “...a choir long on experience and comfortable in its own collective skin. The mainly vibrato-less singing is warmly blended, with spot-on pitching, and a welcome focus on elucidating text and structure without gimmicky effect-making.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2010 **** “The fresh-sounding Toronto-based Elora Festival Singers obviously love this optimistic and transparently honest music...Tuning is always spot-on and Nigel Edison draws a wide dynamic range from his singers. Climaxes are never coarse and the church acoustic is used to sublime effect...This stimulating and superb disc is a bargain and an absolute"'must-have".” Gramophone Magazine, September 2010 | | | (also available to download from $6.00) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Eric Whitacre: Light & Gold
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. “an engaging and populist, if not overly challenging, programme that presents Whitacre as perhaps the American equivalent of Karl Jenkins.” The Independent, 15th October 2010 *** “Soupily addictive and beautifully sung.” The Observer, 17th October 2010 “Their collective intonation is stunning, and they sing with conviction and enjoyment...[there are] many typical Whitacrian hallmarks: a sonorous haze of piled-up cluster-chords, with deep basses and floating upper parts, punctuated by startlingly "scrunchy" multi- (and oft-unresolved) suspensions of rapturous beauty...this gorgeous disc deserves the widest exposure. Simply glorious!” Gramophone Magazine, December 2010 “'The Stolen Child'...is the most immediately impressive. Here Whitacre deftly weaves the entreating faerie voices of Yeats's poem with that of the 'human child'...The burgeoning crescendo which opens 'i thank You God' is one among many...examples of the EW Singers' technical and expressive excellence.” BBC Music Magazine, Christmas 2010 ***** “it's all spot on: tuning, vocal blend, articulation of text, or shaping and colouring of phrases. Whitacre's texts have a youthful appeal, from Leonardo da Vinci dreaming, to a young couple kissing in the sun. The singers' vibrant performances complement this, not just in their silvery vocal timbre, but in the sense that they truly believe in what they're singing.” Classic FM Magazine, January 2011 ***** | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Eric Whitacre - Cloudburstand other choral works
‘This beautifully performed and recorded CD contains the bulk of Whitacre’s choral canon and displays his delicate yet vital approach to writing for voices’ (Gramophone) “Cloudburst is the central piece here, a dazzling kaleidoscope of busy clamour, arcing lyricism, solo and spoken passages, sighing, handbells, wind chimes, inter alia. Whitacre was only 22 when he wrote it. Mightily effective, it's superbly performed (as is everything else on the CD) by Polyphony and Stephen Layton.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2006 ***** “This beautifully performed and recorded CD contains the bulk of Whitacre's choral canon and displays his delicate yet vital approach to writing for voices. I guess if you like Tavener (or Pärt, who is strongly evoked in David), you'll enjoy Whitacre.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2006 | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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Gramophone Magazine