Name: 【TED】Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong (A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong | Eric Whitacre)
Uploaded: 2016-10-19T09:52:04.000Z
Duration: 14 min 35 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I dreamed of it, and that's all I dreamed of.

To be more accurate, I wanted to be a pop star.

And mostly I wanted to be the fifth member

I didn't read music, but I played synthesizers and drum machines.

And I grew up in this little farming town in northern Nevada.

And I was certain that's what my life would be.

And when I went to college at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas

or even a degree program for that interest.

and invited me to come and join the choir.

And I said, "Yes, I would love to do that. It sounds great."

The choir people in my high school were pretty geeky,

and there was no way I was going to have anything to do with those people.

And about a week later, a friend of mine came to me and said,

At the end of the semester, we're taking a trip to Mexico,

And the soprano section is just full of hot girls."

They opened their scores, the conductor gave the downbeat,

In my entire life I had seen in black and white,

and suddenly everything was in shocking Technicolor.

The most transformative experience I've ever had --

in that single moment, hearing dissonance and harmony

that I was part of something bigger than myself.

And there were a lot of cute girls in the soprano section, as it turns out.

I had learned to read music by then, or slowly learning to read music.

and then I wrote another piece, and that got published.

and I ended up doing my master's degree at the Juilliard School.

And I find myself now in the unlikely position

as a professional classical composer and conductor.

And it was this young woman who had posted a fan video to me,

(Video) Britlin Losee: Hi Mr. Eric Whitacre.

I'm a little nervous, just to let you know.

I could see the little teddy bear sitting on the piano behind her in her room.

And I had this idea: if I could get 50 people

sing their parts -- soprano, alto, tenor and bass --

wherever they were in the world, post their videos to YouTube,

we could cut it all together and create a virtual choir.

hopefully for the last time in public ever.

And I made free the download of the music

to a piece that I had written in the year 2000

called "Lux Aurumque," which means "light and gold."

And lo and behold, people started uploading their videos.

And it's in complete silence when I filmed it,

because I was only hearing the music in my head,

imagining the choir that would one day come to be.

Afterwards, I played a piano track underneath

so that the singers would have something to listen to.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong (A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong | Eric Whitacre)

sleep

people

sing

music