media

Virtual choir: performance, and technology, and… wow.

Composer Eric Whitacre, known for stirring choral compositions, has for several years been doing an experiment he calls “Virtual Choir”. He makes a guide track available for one of his pieces—something to sing along to—and asks the public to record themselves singing their part on camera and send it to him. In this particular rendition, “Virtual Choir 3,” you are apparently hearing 3746 voices from 73 countries performing together. Whoa.

Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 3, ‘Water Night’

  • August 20, 2014

Everything is a drum: frozen lake edition.

So apparently a woman slipped on the ice and it made a cool sound, which gave her percussionist husband the idea to write and perform a piece for this frozen lake in Siberia. The ensemble is Ethnobeat. The lake is Lake Baikal, which at one mile deep and 25 million years of age is the oldest and deepest freshwater lake in the world, and also the largest by volume. (Another interesting tidbit: there’s an annual marathon held entirely on the frozen lake.)

I noticed some comments on the video about how it sounds fake. Giving it a really close listen, in my opinion it’s the real deal, although they do seem to have “cheated” by layering on overdubs. In other words, it’s not all performed at once, live, on camera. But it does appear to be real, and that’s pretty awesome. You can read more about the group and their experience on the lake in the Siberian Times.

  • July 30, 2014