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Oh! While I am thinking about it... I have a new

ARTIST OF THE WEEK

Eric Whitacre

I am so in awe of this guy's talent. Seriously. He is not my typical artist of the week. My brother (always my art loving, music finding brother) first introduced me to Eric Whitacre with this song called When David Heard. Quinn prefaced it by saying that I had to listen to it by myself with it turned on loud and no interruptions. Check. I can do that. It is REALLY long. I was not prepared for what I heard. I was driving in my car and had to pull over and close my eyes. How many voices were there? It seemed like 20 different parts, with no breaths, perfectly blended. Where were they singing this? Where? Who is this guy? The feeling of David mourning for his son was so palpable(that's a good word). I had to check this Eric Whitacre guy out!

So here he is.

I expected some old guy. Geniuses are old right? This guy looked like a movie star and was so young. All of that genius was in him? I wikapediaed him and read his story. He went to college in Reno, Nevada. He was brilliant there and started writing at the age of 20ish. He got accepted to Julliard. He met his wife there, a soprano with the most beautiful, pure voice. He features her a lot. She is the voice in Hans Zimmer's Da Vinci Code sountrack. She is as accomplished in her career as he is.

I found out that this When David Heard, was written for Dr. Ronald Staehli from BYU for the Brigham Young Singers. It's neat that Staehli from BYU is well respected by the choral world. I guess a foundation commissioned Eric to do for BYU. I don't know even how much he knew about BYU, but pretty cool! I just learned that today.

Skip to Maddie. The choir program here is excellent. It is big, like at her old school, and everyone loves their teacher/director, Mr. Brookie. It is different than Bountiful, however, in that they mostly sing classical, art songs. Maddie and Ali really love it. This director moves kids around often based on vocal tone. He calls groups of 5 or 6 to the piano and makes them sing on the spot. A lot of these kids take vocal lessons so they can get into the top choir which has a very mature sound. You can tell these kids are trained.

They are going to Italy this Spring and are singing at High Mass at St. Peter's in front of the Pope. Even a Utah Mormon girl appreciates the significance of this! She says she dreams about this trip every night. I've never seen her so excited about anything other than art and BHS football games.

Her choir is singing two Eric Whitacre songs! I heard one two nights ago at her choir concert and they are learning Lux Aurumqe next. When they sing it in Italy, it will probably be a lot like this. (Click on the boys' choir).

So, if you are musically deep and somewhat profound, you will appreciate Eric Whitacre. If you are a bit musically shallow, shall we say, you might just want to skip this whole post. :)