Eric Whitacre

I think the students are enjoying working on that one.

Um, and then we will go to Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre.

Oh, yes.

And I selected that one for a couple of reasons.

[laughs]

But also some people may know that piece from its original choral version, but this was not transcribed for band.

Eric Whitacre himself reset it for band, so it wasn't just an adaptation by another arranger.

Um, but he did it for a famous, uh, conductor, Gary Green.

Shit.

Um, Sleep by Eric Whitacre.

Yeah.

It's kind of the pick.

Mm-hmm.

[laughs]

Um, and so we, one of the, one of the pieces in our repertoire was this piece, Sleep by Eric Whitacre.

And, um, yeah, it just...

So I was looking very much to more traditional commercial, um, areas, which I also love, but it was interesting that that was only ever recreational for me at that point.

And it wasn't until I had some very kind mentorship from Eric Whitacre a few years later where he was like, "Oh no, this is how you build, this is how you build like a career." And I was like-

Uh-huh

... "I see." And I, it came from that.

Yeah.

Um, they're not gonna have preconceived notions.

In fact, speaking of, since we mentioned Eric at the beginning of the, our conversation, there was a time period wh- of course, where every high school kid wanted to sing Eric Whitacre music-

Yep