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Eric whitaker cloudburst12/31/2023 The entire audience will follow you (trust me), and then you are free to turn back to the band.Īt rehearsal letter I, you may use handbells, tone chimes, or in the absence of both, the piano cue. ![]() Immediately after the ff downbeat at rehearsal letter J, turn to the audience, raise your hands, and start snapping your fingers. (Don’t tell them what it is, as it spoils the surprise). ![]() Prepare the audience ahead of time, simply letting them know that there will be an element of audience participation towards the end of the piece. The words they are singing and whispering, “la iluvia” (pronounced la YOU-veeah), simply mean ‘the rain’ in Spanish.Īll notes in boxes should be slurred, and played over and over at individual tempos.Īs for the Cloudburst, it is the easiest part of all. All of the singing parts should be divided equally among the players (balancing the clusters as best as possible), and it is essential that the notes be sung in the correct octave. The singing parts look a little daunting, but really it is simply a major chord with half of the singers sliding down a half or a whole step. It is lovingly dedicated to my dear friend and mentor, Dr. Where the choral version is intimate and delicate, the version for winds is strong and assured, and to my ears it sounds like it’s suddenly in technicolor., on a 50 foot screen.Ĭloudburst was premiered on March 16th, 2002, at the Indiana All-State Festival, with yours truly at the helm of that magnificent band. The way this new orchestration has transformed the piece is simply amazing to me: I distinctly remember being at the first rehearsal and just being completely speechless. In the fall of 2001 the Indiana All State commissioned me to write an original work for their top festival band, and I convinced them to let me adapt Cloudburst for symphonic winds. A profoundly moving work for musicians and audience.Ĭloudburst was my second classical work, originally written for chorus in the fall of 1991 it was inspired by an astonishing thunderstorm I witnessed earlier that Spring while on tour in Northern California. Lush and luminescent, Cloudburst combines hand bells, thunder sheets and the audience (snapping their fingers), transforming the entire theater into a magnificent thunderstorm. In conclusion, though, let me simply say this: may 2019 bring you moments of beauty and wonder.£176.00 Composer: Eric Whitacre Category: BIGGIES - Grade 4.5Ĭommissioned for the 2002 Indiana All-State Band, Cloudburst is an adaptation of Whitacre's acclaimed choral work of the same name. You’ll understand why I mention this if you watch the video. If you would like to see what this looks like in performance, I offer a link to Whitacre himself conducting a performance at the BBC Proms. This is not an easy piece to memorize-the first page of the sheet music alone has measures in 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, and 7/4 time. ![]() This is supplemented by drums, a piano, and even thundersheets, to create the effect of the sudden rains that inspired Paz and Whitacre. Again, it contains much randomness, as some of the singers use bells, some snap their fingers, some slap their thighs, each with a different rhythm. The same technique appears more famously in the “Sanctus” of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem.īut it is of course after the breathy La lluvia. The opening measures make use of a “free chant” technique: the parts are given specific words and notes to sing, but each singer sings more-or-less randomly in terms of rhythm and timing. It’s a setting, in Spanish, of “El cántaro roto” (“The Broken Water-Jug”) by Octavio Paz. It’s scored for eight-part chorus and percussion, performed here by the Brigham Young University Singers, conducted by Ronald Staheli. This was Eric Whitacre’s first major work.
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