This Most Amazing Music

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

A few posts ago, I talked about Garrett Lisi, a theoretical physicist who has taken an unusual path to the pinnacle of radical thought.

I have recently discovered someone who is kind of a musical companion to Lisi. He is a choral composer named Eric Whitacre, and his music is as sonically expansive and profound as Garrett Lisi's Theory of Everything.

I first heard one of Whitacre's pieces when I attended my son Spencer's Winter concert at Downingtown East High School. One of the choirs that Spence sings in performed Whitacre's i thank You God for most this amazing day; the title and lyrics are from an e. e. cummings poem. The piece was a revelation to me, and the choir, called Masterworks, sang it beautifully.

Eric Whitacre composes choral pieces that are mind-expanding - I don't know what the music of the spheres sounds like, but if it had choral accompaniment, this would be it. The music is dissonant, yet harmonically beautiful; multilayered and complex, yet accessible to the emotions, much like the cosmos.

But the thing about Eric Whitacre that most reminds me of Garrett Lisi is the unorthodox path he took to composing music of this sophistication. Eric Whitacre took piano lessons as a kid but didn't stick with them; he played in the high school band, but got kicked out. He somehow got into the University of Nevada as a music ed major despite the fact that he couldn't read music. Then, because there were a lot of cute girls in the college choir, he decided to join. The choir started to rehearse Mozart's Requiem, and Whitacre's life was changed forever. He had found his passion.

He composed his first piece at 21, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, Eric Whitacre is 40, and his music is performed all over the world; in addition to choral works, he writes band music and electronic music. He also guest conducts throught Europe, Asia, Australia and North and South America. There are Eric Whitacre festivals, and his music is the subject of scholarly research.

Eric Whitacre's music is recognizable by his signature "Whitacre chords" - seventh or ninth chords, sometimes with suspended seconds or fourths, which give it the dissonant sound that it has (for the non-musically inclined, play two notes next to each other on the piano to hear how dissonant a second is). His chord progressions are also unusual, and he changes meter frequently. His music has sections that are aleatoric (random) or indeterminate.

I find myself pondering what Eric's parents may have thought when their son, who seemed not to have much of a focus throughout his teens, became a music prodigy almost by accident (or not; surely such great ability would have inevitably found its way out). Maybe they encouraged him, maybe they were patient enough to believe that he would find his way. However it happened, I am gateful that it did.

Here is Eric Whitacre's i thank You God for most this amazing day, performed by the choral group Polyphony. If you have five minutes or so, give it a listen. I hope you enjoy it!