Eric Whitacre on Creativity and Inspiration

In Eric's words, "Hey gang!" One of my friends from Virtual Choir shared this presentation that Eric Whitacre gave a while back. He has some wise words regarding how to hone our creativity.

He gets into the the Golden Mean (or Golden Ratio) a little bit. As soon as he mentioned it, I could picture a Baroque minuet with 2 + 2 + 4 bar phrases:

I must say that I have to agree with him about the airplane being a great place to be still and then get some work done.

On Music and Technology, Teaching Awards and Future Collaborations

Last month, I was named the Tech Teacher of the Year. Last week, I got to pick up the hardware on the other side of the country:

The Tech Teacher of the Year Award is the brainchild of Roland Canada, Music for Young Children and Conservatory Canada. It is the first time that this award has been given out. The representatives involved decided to present the award at the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers' Associations (CFMTA) national convention in Halfiax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

The magnitude of the award didn't hit me until I stepped into the ballroom at the World Trade and Convention Centre. The mere thought of standing in front of music teachers from all over North America, many of whom have been teaching for far longer than I, was overwhelming. The realization that I had to come up with a decent acceptance speech was frightening.

Thanks to my previous "lives" - arts marketing and fund development, special events and communications - experience and Divine inspiration kicked in. Ergo, I am familiar with the "lead sheet" of an acceptance speech. All that was left was to decide upon a few salient points while my shaking hands tried to direct my meal into my mouth.

Now I can't remember everything I said. I do remember thanking the sponsors for coming up with the idea and for paying my transportation and accommodation to the convention. I vaguely remember mentioning how difficult it was to put the submission together (my first take was over 10 minutes long!). As well, I mentioned how my students are equally fascinated with old technology, tasking me with finding an old magnetic tape recorder.

My last point is one that I've made several times here: technology doesn't have to be scary. It took me years to get my studio to where it is today. Even then, it wasn't until my involvement with Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir last year that I upped my game on the music and technology front.

Roland Canada hosted a dinner for the participants who were in attendance at the convention. It was inspirational to just meet and chat with this bright individuals and to express the desire to work together.

When I was able to tell the world that I had won the award, I shared my news on Eric Whitacre's Facebook Wall. I know I shouldn't be surprised that he replied. After all, Eric has nurtured a great relationship with his fans and members of Virtual Choir - to the point that he drops into the odd Virtual Choir Google Hangout and has dinner with 10 VC members who decide to go to Vancouver to catch him in concert:

However, knowing how busy he must be, it's still a bit shocking to get a reply from him.

What's next on the horizon? Who knows? I just know that now that I'm back from Halifax, I have to fight the urge to incorporate all the neat ideas I picked up - all at once.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir, Live at TED 2013

I am very excited about this one. Although I wasn't able to participate, it is just a delight to be able to watch this and know that I've made connections with some of the people in the Virtual Choir who participated in this special project.

This time, Eric Whitacre had a live choir perform onstage with a virtual choir on screen. Just wild.

Virtual Choir for the world!

The full TED Talk:

Interview with Laura Slattery of Virtual Choir 3.0

When I was with Suite101, I interviewed Laura Slattery of Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 3.0 to discuss music, the links between music and medicine and Eric Whitacre.

Laura Slattery of Limerick, Ireland, recorded the Soprano 4 and 5 parts to Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 3 project: “Water Night” from the Grammy-winning album, Light & Gold. This huge multi-track project involved 3,746 videos submitted by amateur and professional singers from 73 countries.

Laura sat down with me on April 27, 2012 via Skype to discuss Eric Whitacre's music, the connections between music and medicine, musical obsessions and Virtual Choir.

Laura Slattery on Choral Singing

Laura has sung in choirs since the age of nine. “Actually, I tried to join my school choir when I was nine and I was told I wasn't good enough,” she recalled. “I said, 'Well I'll show you!' and went in and started getting voice lessons.”

Although Laura plays several instruments, including piano, guitar and tin whistle, choral music holds a special place in her heart. “There's nothing quite like choral singing. You can sing on your own, all you like; but there's just nothing like the experience you get with the people you meet.”

On Singing Eric Whitacre's Music for the First Time

“I think the first that I had heard of Eric Whitacre was actually my current choir,” Laura mused. She sings with the Tullamore Academy Chamber Choir, which recently was named National Choir of the Year.

She went on to recall the first time she sang an Eric Whitacre composition. “I kind of got drafted in at the last minute to sing tenor in “This Marriage” and it was kind of like, 'Wow, this is sick!'” Her conductor advised her to listen to more of Whitacre's music. “He said to go listen to “Cloudburst” . I was absolutely blown away,” she murmured.

Virtual Choir 3.0

“I had only heard “Water Night” once in my life,” she said. “When he announced it in December, I was like, 'Oops.' ” With a chuckle, she added, “I think it's fair to say I procrastinated – a lot. An awful, awful lot.”

She recorded countless times for VC3 and admitted that she was plagued with doubts. “There's just something about listening back to yourself. I hate it at the worst of times,” she admitted.

“We came up to the night before the submissions and I had been talking to my housemate about it. He was like, 'Look, just get and do it. Get up in the morning and get and do it. When are you going to get and do something like this again?' ”

Revitalized, Laura Slattery tried again. “I went into the college at 6:00 in the morning – the day of submissions. Had several failed attempts.” Then there were website and server issues. “I decided to go back home and record the S5 line in the car, just sitting outside of my apartment.”

Once she sent in her submission, Laura made a post to Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir page on Facebook, saying, “Am I out of my mind? I recorded it in the car!” Responses came within seconds. “There were loads of people, 'You did great! We're delighted to have you.' ”

When Eric Whitacre announced that the Virtual Choir submission deadline would be extended, Laura decided to record the Soprano 4 line as well. “If he had gone for another day, I would have recorded another one. It was a labour of love.”

She fell in love with “Water Night”. “It's just such a fabulous piece. It's just so complicated. It's kind of counter-intuitive. How does he come up with these things? It just sounds so perfect but when you separate them out, you're like, 'These things shouldn't work together.' ”

Musical Obsessions

When asked about her favourite music, Laura quipped, “Does it sound cliché if I say any of Eric Whitacre's music? That's my study music now.”

“I've gone through kind of phases of being Handel-obsessed. I've gone through Evanescence. Take everything. Irish folk. I have great love obviously, for Irish music. I will absolutely listen to anything. There's very little that I don't like in music.”

“There's something intrinsically intense about music,” she mused. “It's people putting themselves out there, putting their heart out there on a plate.”

On Eric Whitacre and His Music

“Eric Whitacre is unique,” said Laura, matter-of-factly. “There's not a lot of people who utilize digital media.” She went on to explain. “I can put something up on Facebook and can hear back what he's thinking. You know, get an insight of his thought process.”

“He just captures words so well,” she said of Whitacre's music. “Every word you can see is thought out: 'Exactly how am I going to put those harmonies there? How am I going to get the message across?' “

“There's such feeling in it and a kind of purity and honesty,” she said. “Going back to the heart on a plate analogy, he's someone who literally, I imagine, gives all of himself. It's certainly how it comes across in his music.”

“He's exploded onto the choral scene,” she reported. “Every competition you go to – Ireland's not a big country – there's five or six choirs doing an Eric Whitacre piece.”

The Connections Between Music and Medicine

Ms. Slattery is a second-year medical student at the University of Limerick. She's in the graduate program, specializing in pediatrics oncology.

“Music is kind of like a vocation,” she said after pondering the question. “Medicine obviously has to be. The art of being a good musician, shall we say, is making it sound simple. It requires massive dedication, from the time you're a young child.

“And the ability to communicate emotions and the ability to understand emotion,” she added. “That is massive as a doctor, that too often is missing. You know, focus on the condition, focus on disease and fail to see the person, the emotion, the experience.”

Another link Laura recognized is the connection between creativity and adaptation. “There's obvious creativity in music. In medicine you have to think on your feet – adapt to situations.”

“Interestingly enough, an awful lot of people in my course are musical,” she admitted. “We've had talent nights.” She mentioned also that some medical students sing in choirs, while others teach music part-time.

“It's great to have something to escape to. Something to balance your life with. If you become too one-dimensional, then you lose the human aspect. If anything, I want to be a human doctor.”

Interview with CA Edington of Virtual Choir 3.0

When I was with Suite101, I interviewed CA Edington from Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 3.0 to discuss musical traditions, life in Japan and Virtual Choir.

CA Edington of Sapporo, Japan, recorded the Soprano 4 part to Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir 3 project: “Water Night” from Whitacre's Grammy-winning album, Light & Gold. This huge multi-track project received a total of 3,746 videos from amateur and professional singers worldwide. The audio and video was cleaned on each submission before they were incorporated together.

Ms. Edington sat down with Suite101 on April 14 and 28, 2012 via Skype to discuss Eric Whitacre's music, life in Japan and Virtual Choir.

CA Edington on Musical Traditions

CA grew up in a very musical family around upstate New York. “Everybody would go to my grandparents' house at Christmas,” she recalled. “It was in a small town in Ohio and they had a huge house. We would all stay there for two or three days, and the piano was never empty.”

Christmas carols were unique. “Christmas morning, we would all gather around the tree and before we opened the presents, we would sing a carol in four-part harmony. I thought this was a tradition that was carried on everywhere, in every family. I didn't realize it was just us,” she added with a laugh.

CA Edington on Living and Singing in Japan

CA Edington moved to Japan in 1982 and hasn't looked back since. “I wanted to be in another culture, not just visit. I wanted it to be another culture that's very different from the US.” CA works as an English teacher, proofreader, narrator and transcriber in Sapporo.

CA has nothing but warm things to say about her adopted home. “The city of Sapporo is such an easy city to get around, compared with a lot of places in Japan because it is only a little over 100 years old. The public transportation is fantastic here. I live near a gorgeous park. I can walk through that park anytime of day or night and feel completely safe.”

One of the draws to Sapporo for CA is the vibrant arts community. “Music is very big here,” she said. “There are a lot of choral competitions. There are so many choruses, I don't even know how many.”

Sapporo also boasts The Pacific Music Festival, which was founded by Leonard Bernstein in 1990. “He founded it here in Sapporo. Young musicians come from all over the world for a month to study and perform here in Sapporo.”

CA was one of the first members of the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra Chorus. “It just got started about five years ago,” she recalled. “A student knew about the auditions and she got the audition papers for me and I thought, “Oh. I'll just fill them out.” I was in another chorus, a pretty high level chorus that does mainly classical music and I was very happy in that chorus. I thought, “I'll just try out,” and I went and tried out. Actually, there were about six people from my chorus, six other women and a couple of the men who tried out as well.”

The audition process took place in several stages. “First, we had to do sight reading. I mean cold. We got the piece and got to look at it for 30 seconds and then we had to go in and sing it. The next stage of the audition process was to sing an excerpt from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Getting accepted was a pleasant surprise. “Fast forward to a month later. The class that had recommended that I join the chorus was just finishing up. I went across the hall and found a letter from the symphony. I opened it and I couldn't exactly understand what it was saying.” With a laugh, she added, “So I took it over to my class members and they read it and said, “CA you got in!””

After a moment's reflection, she added. “I wasn't sure whether they would accept me or not, but I've been very accepted. What I love about the chorus is that I'm not a gaijin [non-Japanese] in the chorus. I'm a soprano.”

CA Edington Discusses Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

CA learned about Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir shortly after VC2: “Sleep”, so she had to wait for almost another year to participate in VC3. “I thought 'OK, I'll learn the piece in a couple of days and record it and then that'll be it.' Well, I didn't start until the middle of January and what I discovered was that it was going to be much more challenging than I had thought; especially since I chose Soprano 4.”

She can laugh easily now about some of the challenges she experienced. “Then I'm ready for recording, right before the deadline. I mean, a day or two and there was trouble! I kept getting error messages and then discovered – because I was on the Facebook site and also checking the website – that others were having technical problems.”

Another issue was staggering the breath. “When you're with a chorus you stagger your breath with the person around but here you are singing alone and where do you stagger the breath?” She decided to check some of the other Virtual Choir submissions. “I don't think I heard anyone who got all the way through “soul” the final word, without taking a breath; so then I felt more relaxed about it.”

In the end, it all worked out. “I don't even know how the technicians work that out. To me, that's amazing, but I suppose once you get 3,500 plus voices together, it's not that noticeable who's taking a breath where.”

CA Edington on Eric Whitacre's Music and the “Water Night” Premiere

CA was moved when VC3: "Water Night" and Water Night the album premièred on April 2, 2012. “When that blue screen came up and the faces started – even talking about it right now, I'm getting chills. Just chills,” she recalled. “Of course, I was riveted, not just because I had participated in it, but because the whole concept and the piece and Eric himself are all – I don't want to use the word “amazing”. That's overused. I can't find a word that describes it entirely. It gave me chills. Pleasant chills. Good chills.”

Like many Whitacre fans, Eric Whitacre's music holds a special place in CA's heart. “It transports me when I hear it. It's so complex and at the same time, so simple. How he gets all those notes in there and how they end up sounding so together, I have no idea. The man is a genius and he is the kind of genius that is just so rare.”

Originally published June 12, 2012.  All rights reserved by Rhona-Mae Arca.