New Release from Eric Whitacre's The Sacred Veil performed by Salastina (Piano Quintet)

New EP from one of the world’s most performed composers, Eric Whitacre, on UNQUIET

YOU FEEL LIKE HOME
suite from The Sacred Veil

Performed by Salastina
(piano quintet)

Releases October 18, 2024

Stream now: https://orcd.co/6g6g

A Moving Musical Journey 

Experience the world premiere recording of this breathtaking chamber arrangement, reimagining Whitacre’s acclaimed 2018 masterpiece for choir, cello, and piano. Now tailored by the composer for Salastina’s dynamic piano quintet, this suite captures the essence of Whitacre’s original 12-movement work, initially commissioned by the LA Master Chorale - a profound meditation on life, love, loss, and grief.

"You Feel Like Home: Suite from The Sacred Veil", a new EP from Eric Whitacre and Salastina, releases digitally October 18, 2024.

Explore the intimate beauty of the first five movements, each depicting the tender journey of a couple falling in love and savoring the early, magical years of their marriage. 

The suite premiered to an enraptured audience on January 27, 2024, performed by Salastina at the iconic Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena, California.

Maia Jasper White (Artistic Director, Salastina) writes: "No single piece of music has ever made me weep more than Eric's The Sacred Veil.  We were honored when he offered to arrange a suite for Salastina's piano quintet. The premiere in Los Angeles was a big success, and we instantly agreed that it must be recorded. This version preserves the intimacy and tenderness of the original; the lack of text and one-on-a-part voicing brings a poignant, universal, ineffable beauty to his beautiful melodic lines and aching harmonies. Speaking personally, I am honored that my friend entrusted us to bring this new jewel of the chamber music repertoire into the world." 

Performers: Maia Jasper White (violin I), Kevin Kumar (violin II), Meredith Crawford (viola), Yoshika Masuda (cello) and HyeJin Kim (piano)

Track Listing

1. The Veil Opens
2. In a Dark and Distant Year
3. Home
4. Magnetic Poetry
5. Whenever There is Birth

Credits
Recorded at Mountain View Mausoleum, Altadena, CA, USA on June 7^th 2024.
Recording Engineer: Louis Ng
Producers: Maia Jasper White & Kevin Kumar
Label: Unquiet 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnzU_Xgm994

Salastina

Salastina is a visionary chamber ensemble and presenting organization based in Los Angeles. The winner of San Francisco Classical Voice’s Audience Choice Award for “Best Chamber Ensemble,” Salastina is a 21st-century reimagining of the chamber music salon. It is a place where musicians and audience members gather to share in the beauty of the art form through performance and conversation, whether in-person for intimate, local audiences or online for tens of thousands worldwide. 

Integral to Salastina’s live concerts are historical context, storytelling, and ample opportunities for audience members and musicians to engage in conversation. As one audience member put it: “Where else can audiences have a personal conversation with a 'famous musician' who might have been a role model and inspiration? People can't even pay money to talk to their favorite performers backstage. Yet Salastina has created an arena where musicians and audiences can connect.”

In keeping with Gustav Mahler’s definition of tradition as “not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire,” Salastina invests equally in performances and recordings of classical and contemporary music. Salastina’s work in this area has been broadcast dozens of times nationally on Performance Today.

Salastina’s programming also includes its tuition-free, highly competitive Sounds Promising Young Composers Program, which has provided dozens of composers worldwide with mentorship and world-class audio-video recordings of their work. Alumni have gone on to secure professional commissions. Since May of 2020, Salastina’s Vital Sounds program has provided over 60,000 minutes of music to over 3,500 patients one-on-one at UCLA Medical Center’s ICU. Vital Soudns is currently expanding to Huntington Health.

Salastina.org

Eric Whitacre

Grammy Award-winning composer and conductor, Eric Whitacre, is among today’s most popular musicians. A graduate of The Juilliard School (New York), his works are programmed worldwide, and his ground-breaking Virtual Choirs have united well over 100,000 singers from more than 145 countries. Among his accolades and awards, in recent years Eric received the Richard D. Colburn Award from the Colburn School and an Honorary Doctor of Arts from Chapman University (CA).

Eric served consecutive terms as Artist in Residence with the Los Angeles Master Chorale and currently holds the position of Visiting Composer at Pembroke College, Cambridge University (UK). He’s also an Ambassador for the Royal College of Music in London (UK) and is proud to be a Yamaha artist. 

A long-term relationship with Universal/Decca Classics has produced several no.1 albums which have enduring success. New works include Eternity in an Hour received its premiere in September 2024 at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall (London) followed by performances in Belgium, Australia and the USA. In 2025, Murmur, commissioned by revered violinist, Anne Akiko Meyers, will receive its premiere performed by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

A widely respected conductor, Eric has worked with the world’s leading choirs and orchestras including the Minnesota Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2024, he conducted Mozart Requiem alongside his own pieces with The Louisville Orchestra. His collaboration with Spitfire Audio resulted in a trail-blazing vocal sample library which became an instant best-seller and is used by composers the world-over.

EricWhitacre.com