FLY TO PARADISE

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Amazing

Eric Whitacre is known as a modern day musical genius. His vocal and orchestral arrangements are world renowned, and most professional musicians, specifically ones with a vocal performance or choral background know of his accomplishments and his amazing work.

A fan of Whitacre’s, Britlin Losee, recorded a video of herself performing one of his most popular arrangements, “Sleep” and uploaded it on YouTube. Whitacre was incredibly inspired by her video, and made a personal request to all of his other online fans to record themselves singing various vocal parts of another very well-known song of his, “Lux Aurumque“, and upload those to YouTube as well. Video editor Scott Haines volunteered his time to splice all of these clips together, creating the world’s first Virtual Choir.

Three years have passed since this revolutionary video was released. and the Virtual Choir phenomenon has reached all corners of the world. Whitacre’s video series has grown incredibly since it began, now with more than six million collective views between the first three Virtual Choir performances, with more singers joining the online ensemble each year.

With Whitacre’s newest release, Virtual Choir 4, entitled Fly to Paradise, the number of participants has risen from originally 185 singers to a whopping 5,903 singers and a total of 8,400 videos indvidicual videos (many participants record more than one part). Performers from all over the world use a combination of webcams, smartphones, tablets, and video cameras to record themselves in places like bedrooms, bathrooms and basements, totally to an incredible 101 countries.