This video captures Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir peforming Lux Aurumque.

The piece brings together 185 voices, from 12 countries, to create a "virtual choir" that exists only within a video editing application and a DAW. Singers created individual video performances of their parts, which were then combined to create a complete choir.

What really makes Whitacre's Virtual Choir performance notable, though, is that it's actually musical.

Here's what Whitacre has to say about the performance:

My goal with this ‘chapter’ of the Virtual Choir was to see if we could not just sing our parts separately and cut them together; I wanted to see if we could actually make music.

There is a lot of rubato in my conducting (slowing down, speeding up) and some very specific dynamic gestures, and the singers responded beautifully.

In addition to composing Lux Arumque, Whitacre developed a YouTube-friendly technique for conducting the virtual choir.

Here's Whitacre's conducting track:

Using this track, singers created individual performances, like this one by Julie Pajuheshfa:

"I’m hoping that this is just the beginning," notes Whitacre. "My ultimate goal is to write an original piece for the Virtual Choir and have it receive it’s world premiere in cyber-space, hundreds (maybe thousands) of people singing alone, together."

James Lewin
Twitter @podcasting_news

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