Just happened across this astonishing world-wide "ubuntu" of voice.

[QIII]

Haven't found the full version of the second composition, which starts at about 12:15.

http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_whitacre_a_virtual_choir_2_000_voices_strong. html

[Bucky Ball]

Yes, looked at this awhile ago.

[QIII]

I was astonished. Have you seen the final product? I'd like to check it out.

[Bucky Ball]

Am actually a bachelor of music studies with my honours in musicology in my other life. Just finished last year. Eric caught my eye when I was researching other things not long after the project was launched.

He is (was) very much the new golden boy (literally) a few years back. It is odd that the sonic result is quite intimate while the way it is created and produced is far from it (although raises questions about creative activity and collaboration in real and virtual worlds). The intimacy comes from each individual's performance and experience of recording the piece (in solitary) and the overall effect of all this 'intimacies' put together creates the new from the parts, another kind of intimacy. None of the performers ever meet! Unusual way to make music anywhere else but in the studio.

Anyways, worthy of further anthropological/sociological/musicological research. Guess you've seen this:

http://ericwhitacre.com/the-virtual-choir

Nice idea, but once you've done it, doing it again is a bit like reinventing the wheel. Where to next? The project also drags the focus away from much analysis of Whitacre as composer (and his compositional skills, at least on this project and possibly dictated by the nature of it, are nothing groundbreaking). It is all about the concept, though, isn't it, rather than Whitacre claiming to be one of the 21st centuries leading composers, choral or otherwise, or choir masters (there is not really any conducting involved, more post-production editing)! Perhaps we can consider Whitacre a 'virtual facilitator'.

Rant over!

[QIII]

Whitacre? Bah.

Whitacre and his composition are minor players in my mind. It could as easily have been one of my personal favorites: Bach's "Agnus Dei" from "Mass in B Minor". (Of course, we'd have to haggle over why a Lutheran chose to set the Latin Mass to music -- but that's another matter entirely.)

My fascination is in the individual human voices in disparate points in space and time creating something lovely, rather than the normal ugly, hateful and destructive things we humans so often create.

Why do it again? I don't know. If the Berliner Philharmoniker records "Wassermusik", why should the Boston Philharmonic? Why, even, should the Berliner Philharmoniker ever record it again later?

Whitacre and his music are not the story -- although he is just full enough of himself to promote himself as the story.

[Bucky Ball]

Well put.



My fascination is in the individual human voices in disparate points in space and time creating something lovely, rather than the normal ugly, hateful and destructive things we humans so often create.

+1.


Whitacre and his music are not the story -- although he is just full enough of himself to promote himself as the story.

Yes, I find him quite annoying.