Eric Whitacre conducts "Cloudburst"

Choral superstar Eric Whitacre conducted the VocalEssence Chorus & Ensemble Singers, The St. Olaf Choir, and the 160-voice Minnesota High School Honors Choir in a performance of "Cloudburst"--part of the sold-out VocalEssence "Eric Whitacre Extravaganza" on March 22, 2009 at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis.

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[Jared Rishky]

I talked with Eric about his inspiration for this piece and he told me that he went in the forrest for a day and saw insects and how they were living completely normaly then suddenly started to leave. After he noticed they left, it suddenly dumped rain.

[YerkesDodsonCurve]

Plus who doesn't like to look at Eric Whitacre?

[26Sundrops]

I believe I see some Coon Rapids High School robes in the mix there! I'll be in the choir program at St. Olaf next year and I am super excited... I'm singing this piece at CRHS right now for Bravo, our spring program :)

[Jose Solis]

I just LOVE this piece. We did it in Puerto Rico. The pronunciation of the guy, at the beginning is excellent, but the lady reciting the next text is HORRIBLE. There are several problems with other phonetics, like the way English speaking people from the USA pronounce the letter "T", which is usually dreadful. But way to go on the rolling of the "r". The pronunciation of the "ll" could have been a little stronger also, since the poet is from Mexico.

[terance crooks]

there should be a face cam just for eric's facial expressions

[Justin Smallwood]

my choir is singing this one as well I wish you guys all the best

[Justin Smallwood]

By far one of the hardest pieces to learn EVER but once you do you can conquer and piece of music

[BlueMewSings3]

Interesting to find out about the background of this piece. Cool! Eric Whitacre is the best! Inventive, creative, and fun. Thanks for the great post. Love it. This should have a gabillion views and there should be a Love button. What's not to like about this? Love the varying ages of the choir. :-)

[Roocheer]

This song gave me goosepimples, I miss singing in a choir

[Emily Bouwhuis]

Singing this in choir right now :) freakishly hard but powerfully beautiful :D LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!

[Enrique Eskeda]

Very good spanish pronunciation! =)

[akamaru3]

this piece is nuts. im a band kid and really picky with choir pieces but its so creative how it paints such a vivid picture of insects making their noises, stopping, and then the thunder.