Eric Whitacre: guest composer at the Palau de la Música
Eric Whitacre travels to Barcelona to conduct three concerts as guest composer at the Palau de la Música Catalana. Highlights include the Spanish premiere of Eternity in an Hour, also released this month in its premiere recording.
The Palau de la Música Catalana welcomes Eric Whitacre to Barcelona for a series of concerts this season in his role as guest composer at the historic venue. This appointment for the 2026/27 season follows a successful performance of his moving and powerful cantata The Sacred Veil in 2023 with the Palau de la Música Chamber Choir. The first concert on 8 November brings the Spanish premiere of his Eternity in an Hour, dating from 2024 and setting texts by William Blake. The work’s first recording is released on 23 October by Decca Classics featuring the Eric Whitacre Singers and cellist Emma Denton (Decca 4872246).
> More information on the new recording
> Pre-order from Presto
Whitacre had long been inspired by the opening four lines of Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, starting with ‘To see a World in a Grain of Sand’: “What I felt I was seeing in the music beneath Blake’s words was a kind of longing for the present. It’s almost a road map that he created for how to be truly in the moment. Blake, in his ever-mystical way, invites the reader to enter into the infinite world of a grain of sand. Even there, in the smallest, most insignificant thing, lies our entire experience. This displays a deep understanding of the dense, fractal, ephemeral world that exists at every level of our known universe.
“I decided to take those four lines and then see if I could create an hour-long piece that was, in a way, a journey deeper and deeper into that grain of sand. And hopefully find at the end of it that there is an essential magnificence that is as grand and beautiful as anything large or seemingly phenomenal. Even in the simple there is perfection.” Conducted by Whitacre, this work combines his first love of electronica and synthesisers with choral music. The second half of the album is Auguries of Innocence – a collection of ambient remixes based on Eternity in an Hour, featuring artists such as IDRA, Jess Gillam, and Elin Piel.
On 10 April Whitacre returns to conduct the Palau de la Música Chamber Choir in a performance of The Sacred Veil, which has become his most performed large-scale choral work and can be heard on a pair of recordings by Voces8 on Decca and the Los Angeles Master Chorale on Signum. The text, by Whitacre’s close friend and long-time collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri, commemorates the death of the poet’s young wife Julie from ovarian cancer. It journeys from the growth of their love, through the birth of their children, to their struggle with the illness.
The following day, 11 April, sees Whitacre conducting the entire choral family of the Orfeó Catala, including young singers, in a programme ranging across his catalogue. Repertoire includes Sleep, The Seal Lullaby and all three constituent choirs joining together in Lux Aurumque and Sing Gently. This lunchtime concert concludes the Whitacre weekend and his season-long feature in Barcelona.
> More information on Whitacre in Barcelona
October also brings the first Belgian performance of The Sacred Veil (2 October) with the Flemish Radio Choir and the first US performance of Eternity in an Hour by the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus to celebrate its 75th anniversary (24 October), both conducted by the composer. The first West Coast performance of Eternity in an Hour follows in the New Year with the Los Angeles Master Chorale (31 January).
> Further information on Work: Eternity in an Hour
Photo: Mark Royce