A choir live and online: Eric Whitacre at TED2013
Photo: James Duncan Davidson
In an extraordinary finale for TED2013, Eric Whitacre stages a type of performance that has never been seen before, with a choir assembled to sing his composition, “Cloudburst.” It’s not just any choir. He’s joined on stage by 100 live singers formed from choirs from California State University, Long Beach Campus, California State University, Fullerton Campus, and Riverside City College. That’s been done before. He is also joined, via Skype, by 32 singers from 32 different countries connecting from their homes.
Photo: James Duncan Davidson
Whitacre is famous for his Virtual Choir, and the follow-up, shown first on stage at TED. But no one has ever attempted to put a live choir together with a virtual one. In part this is because of the latency issues of the connection. It’s less than a second, but in singing that is still a potentially huge problem. So, he adapted “Cloudburst,” one of his earliest pieces, to embrace that latency.
The effect is stunning. We listen to this amazing piece, aware of the vast connection enabled by the Internet.
Photo: Ryan Lash
Photo: James Duncan Davidson
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commented on Mar 3 2013
Reblogged this on Letters and commented:
Eric Whitacre, who graced the TED stage in 2010, synthesized and conducted a virtual choir. This time, he conjoins an unprecedented live choir with the virtual singers. With the problematic lag in Internet connection however, Eric ingeniously embodies this lag as part of his combinatorial creation.
Maria Petrova commented on Mar 1 2013
I was part of the Live Virtual Choir. We were all incredibly moved to take part of something so beautiful and far-reaching. The beauty of a piece that allows for a slight lag in participation is such a gracious marriage of technology and time zones. If timing is everything in a piece of music, and we made it work with a 1-second lag, this performance transcends time. And it transcends space. Thank you so much, Eric, and thank you, Chris Anderson!
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