2014-03-13 15:40:53

"Voices of Faith" in Vatican: Eric Whitacre and Hila Plitmann, finding faith in music


(Vatican Radio) The internationally acclaimed contemporary composer and conductor Eric Whitacre, known for his choral and wind ensemble compositions, says music “makes for a more compassionate, gentler society.” Whitacre, who was invited to open the Women’s Day event “Voices of Faith” March 8th in the Vatican cinema might have seemed an odd choice for the day.

One of only two men to take the stage during the five hour story-telling event about the inspiring work and spirituality of women in the Church, Whitacre confesses his is an untraditional form of faith. He admits he was not raised a Christian and considers himself more of an agnostic. But for Whitacre, composing music is something like a religious experience: “I think what I still take from it is my childhood in Nevada – these vast, open skies and a sense of horizon that never ends… But daily, I feel a sense of wonder and awe that I think very religious and very faithful people also feel.”

This sense of wonder that Whitacre experiences transpires in works performed by his Virtual Choir which brings together thousands of individual voices from around the globe into an online choir. At the Vatican cinema, Whitacre spoke of several of his compositions, such as Sleep and Lux Aurumque which topped more than four million online hits, and said it was a surprise and “a huge honor” to be invited to participate in “Voices of Faith.” The event was hosted by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications and sponsored by the Fidel Gotz Foundation, a Catholic philanthropic organization.

Giving a nod to International Women’s Day, Whitacre expresses gratitude for the contributions women have made to his life, “throughout my life women have made me everything that I am, beginning with my mother and my beautiful wife…my favorite teacher in the world… I’ve just been continually shaped and polished and softened by the women in my life and I am eternally grateful for that.”

Whitacre’s wife, Grammy award winning operatic soprano Hila Plitmann, performed a solo at the Vatican event. An Israeli coming from what she describes as a “liberal” family, Plitmann speaks of the Vatican initiative as part of a generalized pattern of “openness to the other” that she sees around the world:

Listen to Tracey McClure's conversation with Eric Whitacre and Hila Plitmann: RealAudioMP3
(a video link to Sleep and Lux Aurumque can be found below)

“I feel nowadays that the world is really embracing its variety and its openness to acceptance and allowance of differences. And I feel that that is happening here too and I am really grateful that that seems to be the mood and that that’s what we’re giving to our children,” Plitmann says.

Whitacre looks at his own Virtual Choir as just one of means of dialogue between people of different cultures and faiths, and even between people whose countries are at war…

“In the Virtual Choir not only have we seen countries that are in conflict submit videos – we’ve had singers from Iraq and Iran, we’ve had singers from Jordan, Libya, Syria and Israel. We’ve had singers from African nations – some of them that are at war with themselves even right now, as is Syria. But more than that, we’ve seen online, these singers communicating with each other, sending each other these heartfelt messages saying ‘I loved your voice’ or ‘thank you for showing me this’ and then some have even become friends – which is extraordinary. There’s something so innocent and so human, especially about singing together, that I think it immediately becomes a ‘post-national’ exercise. Really, people are just stripped of their nationality and are just human beings.”

Eric Whitacre talks about his Virtual Choir and how he found his musical "Epiphany" in Mozart's Requiem in this TED talk online:







All the contents on this site are copyrighted ©.