For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery of them from www.ted.com:
“TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.”
Today we have the follow up to last week’s talk, TED Talk Thursday – Eric Whitacre: A choir as big as the Internet. According to Ted.com:
In a moving and madly viral video last year, composer Eric Whitacre led a virtual choir of singers from around the world. He talks through the creative challenges of making music powered by YouTube, and unveils the first 2 minutes of his new work, “Sleep,” with a video choir of 2,052.
Eric Whitacre began his music career singing in his college choir, with no previous musical experience. By 21, he had completed his first concert work, Go, Lovely Rose, and soon advanced to Juilliard where he studied under Oscar-winning composer John Corigliano. Today, his 44 published concert pieces have sold over a million copies, he has conducted choral music in some of the most esteemed halls in the world and his music has been featured on dozens of commercial recordings. His album Cloudburst and Other Choral Works earned him a Grammy nomination in 2007.
Most recently, Whitacre has been noticed for his cutting-edge work, Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, a musical that combines electronica with choral and operatic traditions. The musical has earned him the prestigious Richard Rodgers Award, received 10 nominations at the 2007 Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Awards, and performed to a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall in 2010.
For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery of them from www.ted.com:
“TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.”
Today I want to introduce you to one of my favorite composers and one of his most beautiful works. What’s so unusual about this comtempory composer? From TED’s Best of the Web:
“A virtual choir of 185 voices from 12 countries join a choir that spans the globe: “Lux Aurumque,” composed and conducted by Eric Whitacre, merges hundreds of tracks individually recorded and posted to YouTube. It’s an astonishing illustration of how technology can connect us.”
“Eric Whitacre began his music career singing in his college choir, with no previous musical experience. By 21, he had completed his first concert work, Go, Lovely Rose, and soon advanced to Juilliard where he studied under Oscar-winning composer John Corigliano. Today, his 44 published concert pieces have sold over a million copies, he has conducted choral music in some of the most esteemed halls in the world and his music has been featured on dozens of commercial recordings. His album Cloudburst and Other Choral Works earned him a Grammy nomination in 2007.”
“Most recently, Whitacre has been noticed for his cutting-edge work, Paradise Lost: Shadows and Wings, a musical that combines electronica with choral and operatic traditions. The musical has earned him the prestigious Richard Rodgers Award, received 10 nominations at the 2007 Los Angeles Stage Alliance Ovation Awards, and performed to a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall in 2010.”
And he is currently at it again, creating another even larger Virtual Choir to perform his famous piece “Sleep.”
Enjoy this amazing video, then hear Eric talk about how it all began.
Come back next week and see the new video of Eric’s piece, “Sleep,” sung by a virtual choir of 2000!
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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!
Be sure to Subscribe to this blog either by RSS or Email via the forms on the top right column of the page.
According to TED.com: For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery of them from www.ted.com:
TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.
For the next few weeks I want to concentrate on talks that focus on the creative arts, music, dance, etc. In today’s Talk, one of the Best of the Web series at TED (http://www.ted.com/talks/bobby_mcferrin_hacks_your_brain_with_music.html), in a 3-min performance from the World Science Festival, musician Bobby McFerrin uses the pentatonic scale to reveal one surprising result of the way our brains are wired. Having been a music teacher earlier in my life, I remember being taught that all children, in all cultures show this interesting phenomena, of using the notes of pentatonic scale in their first songs. (For those of you unfamiliar with the pentatonic scale, think of a scale made up of only 5 notes and those notes being the same as the black keys on a piano). To demonstate, remember being a child and teasing a friend by chanting something like “Johnny’s got a girl friend.” Do you hear a tune that you would have sung that to? Most of you will and it will be made up of the notes of the pentatonic scale. We all seem to be hard wired with this scale. I have no idea why, but find it fascinating.
Remember as you watch this that this was happening at the World Science Festival. The audience were not musicians, but they all seemed naturally to be able to follow Bobby in creating a tune based on the pentatonic scale.
Fascinating, isn’t it? Makes you wonder in what other ways we are hard wired for the creative arts.
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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!
Be sure to Subscribe to this blog either by RSS or Email via the forms on the top right column of the page.
For those of you not familiar with TED Talks here is a brief summery of them from www.ted.com: