American composer Eric Whitacre is offering you the chance to make his next music video. Not just you, of course, but you and you and you and you (as in, all of you).
Ever since the 1950s (and the high style of Herbert von Karajan and Maria Callas), visuals have been important in classical--as in other genres of music. Whitacre is an interesting case in point. He came to wider public attention (having already composed an extremely fine choral CD, Cloudburst, for Hyperion) with his "virtual choir"--where people around the world downloaded and filmed themselves singing a piece of his music, after which a video editor put them all together in a really enchanting film. Yet, sonically beautiful though this was, it was also very much a piece of visual theater, as we saw people in their bedrooms, living-rooms, offices, people from many walks of life, together in this animated concert hall. It was very much to be seen (by some three million people to date) as well as heard.
So for Whitacre--presently with Universal--now to concentrate much more public involvement on the visuals shouldn't be surprising. As for the music, that bit's taken care of. Whitacre's new piece is called, somewhat counter-intuitively we assume, Enjoy the Silence. He enjoins interested parties to listen and be inspired and to take free interpretive rein as they create their own videos for the work.
One submitted entry will be chosen as the piece's official video; its creator will get $4,000. The idea is being created in association with Genero.tv, who will also enter outstanding videos in their 2013 awards and have a chance of winning prizes amounting to $50,000. Entries are accepted until 11:59 on November 15, 2013. Not long...so if you haven't started yet, get cracking!
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