COMPOSER ERIC WHITACRE: «Golden Bricks» of Inspiration

Eric Whitacre / Photo from personal archive

SHORT PROFILE

Name: Eric Whitacre

Date of Birth: January 2, 1970

Place of Birth: Reno, Nevada, USA

Profession: composer

Eric Whitacre is one of the most influential composers of our time, a musician whose choral works have shaped the sound of 21st-century classical music. Born in Reno, Nevada in 1970, Whitacre did not initially intend to become a composer — his musical awakening came during his college years at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he studied under Virko Baley, the distinguished Ukrainian-American composer and conductor. Whitacre later went on to earn a master’s degree in composition from The Juilliard School.

From these beginnings, Whitacre’s music has gone on to captivate audiences worldwide. His breakthrough works Cloudburst, Lux Aurumque, and Water Night combine lush harmonies with emotional intensity, leading The Guardian to praise his «immaculate craftsmanship». His debut album Light & Gold topped classical charts in both the U.S. and the U.K. and earned him a Grammy Award.

Equally pioneering is his creation of the Virtual Choir, which united thousands of singers across continents in works like Water Night — with over 3,700 submissions from 73 countries — demonstrating that Whitacre’s art lives at the intersection of tradition, technology, and global community.

In this conversation, Whitacre reflects on the «golden bricks» of inspiration, the responsibilities of the artist, the struggle to remain authentic amid the pressures of the industry, and the transformative power of music.

Leonid: Good afternoon, Eric! It is a great honor for me to introduce you to the readers of Huxley Almanac. You are a composer whose creative path is very inspiring! Tell me, does music ever come to you as a revelation?

Eric: Sometimes. Usually it comes in little fragments — I call them golden bricks. These are little pieces of musical ideas that already have all of this DNA in them. But one piece I wrote, Water Night, was different. I wrote it 30 years ago, and it just unfolded in front of me. It was the most extraordinary experience.

In 1995, as I was completing the seventh year of my undergraduate degree at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, I failed a voice jury — I hadn’t memorized a song. I was told I’d be held back for a year, and that I wouldn’t be able to attend The Juilliard School, where I had just been accepted for my Master’s degree. I was so upset that I quit. I dropped out of school, loaded up my ’72 Mustang, and headed home.

While I was home, I had lunch with Dr. Bruce Mayhall, a choral conductor and a dear, dear friend. In one four-hour lunch, he convinced me not only that I needed to go back and finish my degree, but also that I needed to commit myself to a life as an artist and composer. I’d never really heard someone speak to me like that before, and it changed my life. It was one of those perfect lunches.

I went home afterward wanting to make him something — a gift, in gratitude for what he had just done for me. I opened my book of poetry by Octavio Paz and read his poem Water Night. And for the first and only time in my compositional life, I could hear the music as I read the poetry. It just unfolded, and I wrote it down as fast as I could. Most pieces take me months and months — I’m a very slow composer. But Water Night took me about 45 minutes. I wish they were all like that.

Leonid: That is amazing! When I spoke to American composer Frank La Rocca a month ago, he called your Water Night one of the best works of the last century. You speak of the «golden bricks» of music that come to you. In what form do they usually appear?

Eric: It’s almost always when I start singing something. I’m not a very good singer, but I’ll find myself walking around, sort of humming or singing this little idea. Sometimes I’ll improvise at the piano, just trying to find it. And what it feels like is this: for a day, or several days, or even weeks, there’s just this melody that I keep singing over and over. I can’t quite pin it down — I think, maybe it’s this… no, maybe it’s that. And then, one morning, I wake up and that little thing I’ve been wrestling with suddenly feels as though it’s been there my entire life. Like it’s always existed, waiting for me to notice it. And in that moment I realize: Oh my God, that’s it. That’s the revelation.

Leonid: Do you have a feeling of where it comes from? Do you think it comes from the mind, from the heart, from the soul — or just from somewhere else?

Eric: It’s so funny that we’re having this interview right now. Yesterday I was in Antwerp with some friends, and we went to something called The Lichtenberger method. I thought it was just going to help me listen: you sing, and they teach you how to really hear your own voice, how to listen in general.

But three of the four of us who went had these profound, out-of-body experiences — ecstatic, spiritual. I was in tears. Things were literally vibrating in my body. It was incredible. I was totally unprepared for it.

Afterwards, when we were talking about it, we said: there’s this intellectual way of thinking and being, and then there’s this gut way of thinking. We kept pointing to our guts. And the more we talked, the more we started to believe there’s actually an intelligence in the gut. Even the Greeks thought this — that there’s something happening there.

So, before yesterday, I don’t know what I would have said. But today, after that experience, I think it comes from here — from somewhere else, from my gut almost. It’s hard to describe, but it feels lower than my intellect.

Leonid: When you write music, what do you try to communicate to the audience?

Eric: I always think of music as sonic philosophy. Through music, you are communicating a worldview — a very specific way of seeing and thinking about things.

In art, and certainly in music, there’s so much that comes from a place of damage or pain. And sometimes that pain is elevated and made into the thing itself. I don’t think you should ever look away from grief or from pain — that’s part of the human experience. The real question is how you look at it, how you communicate it to someone else.

For me, it’s very important that what I make feels true. Meaning: this is how I actually believe, this is how I see the world. I believe that there’s exquisite, heartbreaking beauty in everything — even in pain, grief, sorrow. My work is always an attempt to elevate it to that level. The piece When David Heard is a good example of this.

In 1998, I received a commission from a dear friend — a conductor and an early champion of my music. He wanted me to write a piece for his choir, which was preparing for a tour to Israel. I had just married an Israeli at the time and had spent a lot of time there, so I felt the soul of Israel was already inside me. I accepted the commission not only because of that connection, but also because I wanted to give something to him and his choir.

Three weeks later, his 19-year-old son was killed in a car accident.

I wasn’t sure what I could do — what I should do. But I remembered the long tradition of composers setting the Old Testament text When David Heard, about King David losing his son. To me, my friend was a kind of king, and so I called him and said, «I’d like to set this text, When David Heard». There was a long pause, and then he said, «All right». That was the last we ever spoke of it.

I spent months and months trying to craft this piece for him. I’d build a structure, then tear it down. Build it again, tear it down. I was searching for the essence — for some way to capture the grief, to touch even the edge of what he might possibly be feeling.

After fifteen months of writing, I finally presented him with the piece. He conducted it from memory. I was 29 years old at the time, and looking back now, I think: that’s something only a young man would do. Today, I would never in my wildest dreams presume to write something like that for him.

And yet, I’m glad I did. In some way, I think it bonded us. I don’t know if it gave him any sense of catharsis — I hope it did. But the piece was born from a place of pain and suffering unlike anything I had ever experienced before or since. It is, probably, the most deeply personal piece I’ve ever written.

International Short Story Competition «ODESSSIADA»

Leonid: Indeed, it’s one of my favourite pieces of music of all time. How do you feel about the popular music of today which, in my opinion, often has a negative impact on the youth?

Eric: Young people — probably from the dawn of time — have always been doing some version of drugs, rock and roll, and sex. So I don’t think we’ve invented anything new. Where I struggle with it in our modern society is that those ideas — which I think are natural for young people, about exploring and resisting authority — have been corporatized. They’ve been monetized.

Hip-hop artists, for instance: that’s a business. Those big names, they’re businesses. Very few artists aren’t. Kendrick Lamar, for example, I feel has somehow managed to remain a true artist while living in that world. But most of them? It’s record companies taking advantage of people’s basest instincts.

And then there’s a feedback loop: they sell it, people want more, so they sell more, and it spirals. At some point, you’ve done real cultural damage — just to make money. And that frustrates me.

Leonid: Frank La Rocca, when I spoke to him, brought up the point that the music industry gives such small royalties to composers. I think he mentioned the figure of 10%. Is that true?

Eric: If you’re able to get 10%, you’re lucky. Now it’s much less than that. There are countless stories of artists ending up in debt to record companies. At the end of a record deal, some actually owe money back to the label. I think there was once a golden time when artists were compensated appropriately — but that time has passed.

Now it feels like the old analogy: the oil companies own the railroads too. There are maybe four major companies left, and Universal owns nearly half of all recorded music ever made. Can you imagine that? And then you’ve got Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, maybe Amazon — those are the only «railroads» left to get music out there.

So when that much power is consolidated, they can squeeze artists in a way they never could before.

Leonid: How do composers survive in these harsh realities?

Eric: I think being an artist in general is not a choice. Artists don’t wake up one day and say, «You know what I should do? I should make art for a living». Nobody chooses that. You’re chosen. You awaken into this strange economy, and then you have to figure out a way to make it work.

These days, especially, as an artist you also have to become a marketing specialist. Half your life is spent figuring out: How do I sell myself? How do I sell my product? You really have to understand social media and how to use it.

That’s relatively new in art. There have always been people who were good at selling themselves, but this is something different. Now you have to be genuinely sophisticated in terms of marketing just to survive.

Leonid: When writing music, it’s crucial to stay true to your inner voice. Does it take a lot of courage for you to do that, knowing critics and listeners will be judging your work?

Eric: I wish I could say it was courage. I wish I could say I stand strong against the wave of judgment. But the truth is, I simply can’t do it any other way. I once tried writing film music — I couldn’t do it. It just isn’t in me; I can’t find the notes. A couple of times I’ve tried to write something different from what I truly wanted to write, just for money, or to build a career, or to chase success. And every time, it falls apart. I become paralyzed. I can’t compose. So when I do make something, it’s the only thing I can make. Maybe that looks like courage from the outside — but for me, it’s simply the only way I know how to do it.

Leonid: Recently, I was listening to a lot of your album The Sacred Veil, and I fell in love with the piece You Rise, I Fall. There’s such tremendous beauty in that music.

Eric: That’s the perfect example. A piece like that could have been written in a more commercial way. You could take that same idea — the end of a person’s life, someone going through loss, even the phrase «you rise, I fall» — and write it so it’s easier to perform, more accessible for an audience.

But when I actually sat down to write it, in order to be true, it had to be the way it is. It had to be incredibly difficult, super hard to perform, demanding. It had to be that. And as I was writing, I could already feel it: Oh, no one’s going to perform this. But then I thought — well, this is what it has to be.

Leonid: A lot of the composers I’ve interviewed have expressed their negative experiences with how musical composition has been taught in universities — where they had to fit into mathematically calculated music that didn’t come from the soul. What was your experience in university like?

Eric: Yeah, I was just at the tail end of that — but absolutely, it was happening, and it’s still going on in universities. When I was first introduced to it, I honestly thought it was a joke. I came to music late — I was 18 or 19 years old — and I really thought people were kidding. I remember thinking, «Nobody actually listens to this. It’s terrible».

Even during my master’s degree at Juilliard, there was a group of us who called ourselves the New Optimists. The whole idea was simply that it was okay to write music that was joyous, that people might actually want to listen to. And somehow that was considered a revolutionary stance. Can you imagine? I think classical music especially lost its way for a while in the 1950s and 60s.

All of my composer friends and I talk about this — how easy it is to catch yourself composing for other composers instead of for people. You think, «One day, somebody will study this and recognize the brilliance of what I’m doing». But the truth is… they won’t. And more importantly — who cares? This is music. It needs to communicate with someone. Never once in all of my training did anybody ask me: How will the audience feel about this? Is it beautiful? Is it emotionally true? Not once. And that’s really interesting to me.

Leonid: I know that one of your composition teachers was Virko Baley, from Ukraine. Can you tell me about your experience studying under him?

Eric: Virko was really my first composition teacher. Of all places, I studied with him in Las Vegas, where he was teaching at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. For me, Virko was just a lovely, lovely man. But if I’m honest, I think he was a bit of a fish out of water in Las Vegas. He’s a great mind, a true thinker, a real intellect — and a great composer. And there he was, teaching idiots like me. I don’t think I even read music when I first started studying with him. Looking back, I’m incredibly grateful for how patient he was with me. He must have felt at times like he was on the moon, completely out of place. But I have only the fondest memories of my time with him.

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