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SHN: Some of our audience might not be aware that you were a pioneer in virtual choirs, well before the pandemic. Can you give us just a hint as to how it all started for you?
Eric Whitacre: Absolutely. It's funny when you say the word pioneer, because of course, while it was happening, I never once thought that it was anything special. It started for me just with a single video. This young woman named Brittany Lucy. She was seventeen years old. I didn't know her. She was from Long Island, and she uploaded a YouTube video singing the soprano part to a piece that I’d written this back in 2009, and a friend sent me the link, and I saw it and thought, what if we get twenty-five people doing what Brittany is doing? And so I made my first very humble virtual choir way back then stitching together all of these individual videos of people uploading their parts.
And, like I said, at the time, I never once thought that anybody outside like my little circle of choir geeks would be interested right? And then the video went viral, and then I was just inundated with emails and posts from singers from around the world, saying, I have to be a part of the next one. And so that's what really started the whole thing, and we've been doing it for twelve years now, I guess.
SHN: What do you think drew in those first people before it took off? Of course, everybody wants to be part of something that's hot. But in the beginning, what do you think it was?
Eric Whitacre: I think there is a certain kind of spirit, and I think it's more prevalent than people on the outside would believe, which is that there are people who just love to sing, and it's a lot of people - you and I both know this, right? - that there are just people who have to sing. I have the soul of a singer. I don't have a great voice. I think that's why I compose because I can't sing that well. But I want to sing. I just ache to do it, and a lot of those first people, and frankly, throughout all the virtual choir projects, they’re not all great singers, but they want to sing, and I think there's something deeply spiritual and human about that that they want to join.
They want to lend their voices to be part of something larger than themselves, and all it takes is just the call to do that, and people see that. It's an amazing thing to see people gravitate to it. It's more than gravity. It's really magnetic. To be pulled into that thing almost without truly understanding how much they want to be a part of it.
SHN: We’re talking this month about music and its role in terms of healing communities. And we wondered what do you hope that the larger public could understand about the power of choral music to heal a community, specifically choral music?
Eric Whitacre: Well, to go back to simple data, there's study after study now, that shows from all different angles, how good singing together actually is for people, and you know it's everything from these massive health benefits - it reduces the levels of stress hormones in your body, and increases all of the good hormones, and it creates a sense of bonding again, and you feel part of something larger than yourself. Even before the moment you sing with a group of people - you're connected! And we all know now that that's a massive part of a healthy lifestyle - feeling [like you're] part of something, feeling involved and feeling valuable.
But then there are all of these social components of singing together. We know especially for children. It makes them better students, regardless of the discipline. They become better students in math, in science, in history, literature, and geography, biology and music, just by making music together. It also increases levels of empathy and compassion, and it just makes people better citizens.
I'm not a religious person, but my music often gets associated with the religious experience, I think, mostly because it's choral music. And I actually think music is much, much bigger than religion. It's maybe the most fundamental way we have of becoming a group - of bonding together as a group on so many different levels - and it happens almost instantly the moment you take a breath together and sing.
People used to sing together all the time. Sometimes every day you'd simply come together in a single place and sing. And I know from personal experience and anecdotal experience and scientific experience that that just makes a better community - makes a stronger, more compassionate community. That's the whole game.
The funny part is that it’s all there already. It's not this wild, magical fix. Just get everybody in a room and start singing, and it's amazing what happens. It’s maybe the oldest toolbox we've got.
I will say too if there are any of you out there who are considering joining a choir and have never done so - I would just encourage you to be brave. Take that one single step, and you'll be like me. You'll be chasing that dragon the rest of your life. You just won't be able to imagine a life without coming together and singing with people.
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