Eric Whitacre (Reno, Nevada, 1970) is today one of the leading figures in the world of contemporary choral music. A Grammy winner and trained at the Juilliard School in New York, Whitacre has redefined the choral aesthetic of recent decades with a personal, immediately recognizable language, consisting above all of the use of expansive harmonies, vaporous textures, great timbral sophistication and a special capacity to create atmospheres of suspension and contemplation.

Whitacre's works are part of the regular repertoire of choirs around the world, as is also the case in Catalonia, where he is a regular composer in the programs of choirs, both amateur and professional. His music, with great demands in terms of tuning and control of sound, demands a very fine-tuned internal listening and a meticulous work of color and collective breathing. At the same time, he connects with the audience in a direct and emotional way, establishing a bridge between choral tradition and a fully contemporary sensibility.

Eric Whitacre has already performed in concert at the Palau de la Música Catalana to conduct, in sing-along format, a participatory concert with his work, and he also worked with the Palau de la Música Chamber Choir in 2023 to conduct his The sacred veil. The fruit of that experience, transformative for the singers and the audience, is the invitation to become the Palau’s guest composer and thus extend the possibility of working with the choirs of the Orfeó Català and the Palau de la Música Chamber Choir.

Whitacre will work on two occasions with the Palau de la Música Chamber Choir, one of which will be to recover the moving The sacred veil, a 2018 work inspired by the experience of pain due to the illness and death of a young woman very close to him. The other will be the Spanish premiere of Eternity in an hour, premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in London at the 2024 Proms, and of which the Palau de la Música Catalana has participated in the commission, together with the Cor de la Ràdio Flamenca and the Choir of the Sydney Philharmonia. Finally, the entire choral family of the Orfeó Català will have the opportunity to sing in a choral project focused on his work and under his direction, in which a selection of the best and brightest from his catalogue will be performed.