Eric Whitacre was born on January 2, 1970 in the city of Reno, Nevada. Whitacre grew up in his hometown of Reno and began his musical career with his middle school marching band led by a man named Jim Burnett. He later moved on to play synthesizer in a techno-pop band and dreamed of becoming a rock star. Whitacre began his comprehensive musical education as an undergraduate at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, although he was unable to read music at the time, and eventually earned a Bachelor of Music in Music Composition. The first piece he ever sang was called Mozart's "Requiem," and he claims the piece changed his entire life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay He then went on to study composition with Virko Baley, a Ukrainian composer, and studied choral conducting with David Weiller. With the help of these two, Whitacre finished his Bachelor of Music in 1995. Whitacre credits his inspiration for leading him down the path of music to Weiller. Whitacre even presented Weiller with his first piece he wrote for his college class "Go, Lovely Rose" because of its inspiration. He received his Master's degree in Music Composition from the Juilliard School. Also at the Juilliard School, Eric met his future wife Hila Plitmann. Whitacre created his first wind ensemble piece, "Ghost Train" at the age of 23. Now, more than 40 times, this piece has been recorded. After the huge success of Ghost Train, Whitacre moved to Los Angeles at the age of 25 to become a professional composer. Eric Whitacre produced around 80 songs in his life and became a very successful composer. In 2007 he was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Ensemble Performance category with the hsi album "Cloudburst and Other Works". Then in 2012, he received a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance for the album titled “Light and Gold.” Whitacre was clearly a very successful composer. His most popular song is called "Enjoy the Silence", written for SATB. The first piece I choose to write about is Eric's first song "Go, Lovely Rose". "Go, Lovely Rose" was written for SATB and was released in 1991. It appears that the only instrumentation accompanying the piece is a piano. I chose this piece because it was his first composition ever and I thought it probably meant a lot to him because it was in fact his first piece he created. The song makes me think of a man who has finally given up on feeling for a woman who was simply wasting his time the whole time he was with her (because in the first two lines he says "waste me and her). The tone of the song it sounds slow and a little sad. The piece is written in English and was written for his college choir. The second piece I'm writing about is called "Ghost Train". really kicked off his career and helped him choose his path. He said he heard his college horn ensemble play a song and said he could introduce it to the man (his name was Thomas Leslie) a song of his own for the group to perform. Leslie gave him permission to do so, and if it were possible it was good enough for his tastes, the group would play it at their next performance. Whitacre worked on the song during the holidays Christmas and gave it to Leslie to try. Leslie said she loved the song and the group performed it. Whitacre is quoted as saying, "He played it beautifully at the convention, and BOOM... the thing took off like a shot. I.