Congratulations, choirs!
Congratulations, Eric!

(ver) The American choir conductor Eric Whitacre won a Grammy Award for the ‘Best Choral Performance’ this year. It’s a high praise for everyone related to choral music, whether as a singer, listener, composer or simply as a fan of choral music.

After the awarding Eric Whitacre stated on his official website: “It’s going to sound corny, but I genuinely feel like the award belongs to choir geeks everywhere. It seems we are in the midst of a golden age in choral music: so much good music being made, so much excitement around singing and choirs. It’s thrilling to be alive and making music in a time where there is such passion and energy for the choral arts. We should all be celebrating tonight.” Whitacre congratulates all participants and thanked the performers: Christopher Glynn; Hila Plitmann; The King’s Singers; Laudibus; The Pavão Quartet and of course The Eric Whitacre Singers.

Eric Whitacre is famous for his virtual choir project. He created a complete choir on the video-sharing website youtube consisting of many individual contributions by singers from all around who sent their self-made videos to him. At the beginning of April 2012 the third piece of the online choir will be posted to the web. 3746 user-generated videos have been submitted, it’s a new record!

Choral music can be found elsewhere in the world of choir stages as well. Singers who are still far away from winning a Grammy can get a special boost in the framework of the world’s largest choral competition, the 7th World Choir Games in Cincinnati. Participation in one or more of totally 23 categories might be rewarded with Diplomas in The Open Competition and Medals in The Champions Competition. As Eric Whitacre would say: “Woo hoo!”