Eric Whitacre: In the Beginning

In this exclusive preview of Music & Arts’ wide-ranging interview, the pathbreaking composer and conductor recounts his unlikely origin story and thinks about where formal music education falls short.  

Recently, Music & Arts traveled to New York City for an intimate conversation with Eric Whitacre — the legendary composer and conductor who has crafted some of the most beloved works in the school music repertoire.

In a sunlit studio in Midtown, just hours before a triumphant DCINY concert at Carnegie Hall, Whitacre went deep into his past and process. He spoke about why rehearsals deliver a level of joy that concerts simply cannot reach, and unpacked his strategy for meeting deadlines. He reflected on his collaborative chemistry with film-scoring titan Hans Zimmer, and offered big-picture tips for conducting that music educators will find invaluable. He also directed some insightful criticism toward the music-education system. And that’s only the beginning. Prompted by Music & Arts marketing manager Mark Gauthier, a musician who has performed and presented Whitacre’s music throughout his life, the composer proved a remarkably candid, generous and thoughtful presence.

Whitacre also recalled his musical beginnings, from getting kicked out of his high-school marching band to discovering the love for voice and composition that has defined his career. This exclusive excerpt covers those formative years. 

A comprehensive Whitacre feature will be published in the next print issue of Baton, Music & Arts’ official educator magazine. (Subscriptions to Baton are free for school music educators.) A full-length “Music & Artists” video interview will also be released. 

Until then, enjoy this look back with one of contemporary classical’s most fascinating voices. — Evan Haga; Editor, Baton    

Gauthier: Let’s talk about your music education. You went to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for your undergrad, with pop music in mind. 

Whitacre: Yeah, it was the only thing I knew — that and film music. I didn’t read a note of music until I was 20 years old, I guess. I played in marching band, in concert band, sixth through eighth grade. I was in a really nice concert band. But I could never figure out how to actually read, and so I would just play by ear.

And what did you play in concert band?

I played trumpet. Well, actually, at some point I played every brass instrument, but I mostly played trumpet. But what I would do is, because my name is Whitacre, which starts with a W, I was always last for auditioning for chairs. So I’d sit outside the room and listen to everybody go in and audition, and then when it was my turn, I would just go in and play by ear. Sometimes people would make mistakes, and then I would go in and parrot the mistakes. So I just pretended to read music.

Then in high school I was in marching band for a couple of years. And then I got kicked out.

Oh, wow. There’s a story there.

A pretty big story. The short version of it is, it was a massive clash of personalities. But if I’m honest now, looking way back on it, I was insufferable. I was just a rebel, and [the director] probably had every right to kick me out. So I played synthesizers and drum machines all through high school. I was just obsessed with pop music and electronica. And I really thought when I graduated that I would either be a pop musician or, somehow, a film composer, only because I love film music.

I went to school in Las Vegas because I grew up in Nevada. There’s only two state schools, and Vegas is the farthest from my parents.

Priorities. [laughs]

When I went to Vegas, a man named David Weiller was the choir director. He was in the room when I auditioned to be a music major. They didn’t let me in as a music major — couldn’t read music. I could only improvise on the piano. But he took me across to his room and had me sing for him.

And it’s funny, because for years I thought what he saw in me was a diamond in the rough — he could really see the potential. But now that I’ve been working with choirs for 30-plus years, I realize that what he saw was that I have a low voice and that I was alive — and he needed bass. And so he invited me to come sing with the choir, and I said, “No way am I doing this.” I told him in the moment, “Sure. Sounds great.” But then I’d seen choirs in high school and I wasn’t interested.

But then over the weeks he’d see me in the hallway. I wasn’t accepted as a music major, but I just hung out in the music school and would go into practice rooms and play. And he just kinda convinced me. It was really beautiful. I used to tell this dumb joke about how “I did it for the girls,” but it’s not actually true; I used to [say that] for a laugh line. If I’m really being honest about it, it’s that David was just so gentle. He saw me around and said, “I think this is something you’d like.” 

And so I came and, on that very first day I started, we sang the Kyrie from the Requiem by Mozart. And that was it. It utterly changed my life, and I left that room a transformed person. I don’t think in my life I’ve ever been lit up the way I was after that day. I just became obsessed, first with choral music, then classical music, then composing, conducting, everything. 

You took seven years for undergrad, right?

Yeah. Seven-year undergrad.

I had a friend who went through music school who had a very similar story to that, and he was also, I would say, a nonconventional student. Great ears, unbelievable musical instincts, but the musical academia system was at odds with who he was as a person.

I still don’t think [it jibes], by the way, at least for me. I think there’s a kind of way of teaching music that works for some people with certain backgrounds. But for a lot of people, just like you’re talking about, there are these people who see and hear and think about music in a totally different way. And if you’re not careful, you can really get crushed by that system. 

You’ve obviously been through the system, from middle school through earning your master’s degree at Juilliard to advocating for music education throughout your career. Do you have any kind of larger observations about that process and how it could have been more effective?

It’s an important question. I think the challenge is that — at least the way we seem to do education now — there are these benchmarks. Some might argue they’re useful benchmarks, but you could also argue they’re just completely arbitrary. Or maybe not arbitrary, but they’re at least legacy benchmarks, right? “Here’s how you know that you’ve mastered this skill, and then you can move on.”

I think that that entire system is antiquated. And not only that, it doesn’t reflect what it takes now to be a musician or to grow as a musician. But it didn’t ever really work. It’s kind of this Frankenstein version of how to get from here to there. And I think that, in the ideal world, people would be able to look at each individual student and then guide them on their path — that it’d be more of a mentorship. I also think there shouldn’t be a degree. You should be at the school until you’re ready to go, and then you should go.

That was part of my seven-year thing. The last couple of years I just couldn’t understand why I was still there. It was like, “I’m ready for the next thing. What are we doing here?” I just had to tick all of these boxes, and I found that really frustrating.

How did you go from “Sure, I’ll give choir a shot” to composing?

So this man, David Weiller, he became this singular figure in my entire life. I joined all of the choirs. Choir people know that we just all band together like a tribe — it’s like that with band and orchestra kids too. And David … he was our father, basically. I would be in rehearsal and watch him, and I learned so much from not only the way he conducted and the way he thought about music, but just how to be a person. He actually transformed how I move through the world as a human being. Like all great teachers do.

And so in the third year of my seven-year undergraduate degree, I decided that I wanted to give him a gift. I wanted to do something for this man. And he had this tradition where every year he would sing a different setting of a poem called “Go, Lovely Rose!” [by Edmund Waller].

At the time there were like five of these settings, and he would cycle through them. His high school teacher had done the same thing. [It was] a tradition. So I took that poem and I wrote my version of “Go, Lovely Rose!” And by that time I could write OK, and I mostly understood harmony.

But if you look at the sheet music, it’s in six and seven sharps, which I would never do now. But I just didn’t know. And I didn’t quite understand harmony and harmonic spellings. So I had a friend help me fix it, and then I kind of polished it all up and I just gave it to him. I expected nothing, really nothing. And he made copies, then the next day we all read through it in class. And I will never forget hearing me — not Eric, but my essential self, my worldview, my deepest hopes and dreams and fears — outside my body, being brought to life in the hearts and lungs and souls of my colleagues. That was it. That’s when I knew this is what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.