Simon Perry/Special to the Rocky
Eric Whitacre is in demand as a composer and conductor.
Eric Whitacre seemed to be a long shot at succeeding in anything back in his college days.
"I come from Gardnerville, Nev. - which is in the middle of nowhere," the Los Angeles-based musician said. "I didn't know anything about anything when I was growing up."
That would change. Though he looks more like a surfer, he has become, at 38, an in-demand composer and conductor. Choral and instrumental ensembles perform his music regularly, and more than 350,000 copies of his scores have sold worldwide. This weekend, he appears as guest conductor of the choral group Kantorei in two concerts dominated by his music at Bethany Lutheran Church.
A busy music career seemed preposterous in the late '80s, when Whitacre was noodling around on a synthesizer in a pop band. Soon after entering the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, he "got tricked" into joining the school choir.
The main attraction, he was told, would be the cute girls in the class. That, and the prospect of a choir trip to Mexico, sounded appetizing to the 18-year-old. As for the music, "All those notes on the page were gibberish to me."
But then he made a discovery. "We sang Mozart's Requiem - and it changed my life." Moved by the power of the music, Whitacre got serious. He even wrote a little piece for the group, a setting of Edmund Waller's Go, Lovely Rose. "It was my own version, which I wrote down as best I could.
"Even in that first piece, you could see that my signature (sound) was there. Those tight harmonies and cluster chords."
It took a while to get his name on the musical map, however. Heck, it took him a full seven years just to get his bachelor's at UNLV.
"My family was profoundly unmusical," Whitacre said.
Yet, the need to put notes down on paper permeated his body: "I seem to have this sound that is singing in me very loudly."
He enrolled at Juilliard and earned a master's degree. Once out of college, he was encouraged to enter competitions.
"I must have entered hundreds, but I never won. When I'm asked, I encourage young composers to enter them. At least you get heard. And you get used to losing."
A few of his early works found their way into the repertory of American choirs. In 1999, came Sleep, a work that Whitacre describes as "my Free Bird," referring to the Lynyrd Skynyrd rock anthem. The text to that piece, included in Kantorei's concerts, is by his college buddy Charles Anthony Silvestri.
Silvestri, who will attend the Bethany concerts, also contributed the texts for other works, notably Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine. This work, which ends with the choir creating the sound of wind as Da Vinci takes to the air, is also on the Kantorei program.
"That piece began the way a lot of my works do, imagining a movie in my mind," Whitacre explained. "It was a story I wanted to tell."
Whitacre hasn't embraced the mystique of the reclusive composer. Quite the opposite, in fact. "MySpace and Facebook changed everything," he said, referring to the popular Web sites. In addition to sharing thoughts on composing, it's a way to connect with his fans.
An example of his Web involvement is The Stolen Child, premiered in April by the King's Singers in Birmingham, England. Months earlier, the composer began a blog on its creation - even sharing rough drafts of the score. The work, based on the poem by Yeats, will receive its U.S. premiere at the Kantorei concerts.
Whitacre has recently been branching out, writing for wind bands and orchestras, as well as a well-received theater piece, Paradise Lost, featuring his wife, soprano Hila Plitmann.
"With each new piece, I'm trying something new, trying to push myself."
Shulgoldm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5296
Whitacre on the Web
* ericwhitacre.com: info on performances and recordings, links to blogs and related sites
* myspace.com/ericwhitacre: audio samples, downloadable video clips of performances
* soaringleap.com: A composer's blog. Don't miss the April 25 entry, featuring Whitacre in an old McDonald's TV ad that changed his life, "both in terms of music and in terms of girls."
Kantorei
* When and where: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Sunday, Bethany Lutheran Church, 4500 E. Hampden Ave.
* Cost: $10 to $15; 303-316-0356
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