Virtual Choir 4

I've never talked about this here before, but some of you may know that I have been involved with the composer Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir project. Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir (aka EWVC) is, just what it sounds like, a virtual singing project - a choir made up of people from all over the world who for the most part have never met before, singing together to form a giant massive choir out of people their individual voice parts, uploading them together and then cutting and mixing everything together.

It's a pretty sweet project, if you ask me.

Now, not gonna lie - Eric Whitacre pretty much changed my life. Not simply because I got to sing his music when I was in my school choir, I'm not gonna get that cheesy and sappy, but because he is honestly one of the kindest, most hardworking and incredibly talented people on this planet. He's the rockstar of the 21st century classical music world.

Oh by the way did I mention how devastatingly handsome he looks?


I did say. Devastatingly handsome. Ahem.

In 2011, I had the incredible, incredible honour of being mentioned by Eric Whitacre in his TED talk. The TED talk series is a worldwide conference that brings together some of the world's best minds and speakers - Bill Gates, Sir Ken Robinson, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Eric Whitacre of course.

It's an incredibly inspiring series of talks from some amazing people, and when Eric was talking about the virtual choir he mentioned me as one of the singers involved (only in passing, but still!!!!!!). Needless to say, I squealed like crazy and went superultrahyperhappy.

I appear at 4:36.


Ha ha ha - I know I look funny when I come on, lol! It's amazing what a couple of years of difference can do to a person, no?

Anyway, back to how Eric Whitacre changed my life. Because I was on this TED talk, the TEDxSingapore coordinater Dave Lim contacted me and presented me with the amazing opportunity to speak at TEDxYouth in Singapore, in November 2011. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever done, being involved with something as huge as TED.

After TED, I started becoming involved in other things, like more music and more performances. And if you know we well, you'll know that music is probably the dearest and closest things to my heart. It's one of the things I really, really love and which I have no doubt I'll never stop loving. Also because of Eric, being mentioned on TED and everything that happened as a result of it, I started writing and composing music, which I'd stopped doing for a long time.

One of the other things I really love about this guy - he really does make time for every single person. He knows that it's because people love his music that he is where he is today, and he's humble about it. I don't know any other Grammy-award-winner who makes as much time for his fans as he does. He actually responds to everyone who writes on his Facebook page, he'll talk to you if you message him, and somehow he still finds the time to conduct his professional choir the Eric Whitacre Singers, write more music, conduct concerts, be a husband and a dad. I swear to you, this guy owns one of the Ministry of Magic's timeturners.

And now, Eric Whitacre and the Virtual Choir gang need your help.


Through Virtual Choirs 1 2 and 3, the costs of producing this video have grown exponentially as more and more people have become a part of the project. No video of sufficient quality is rejected, which means that if Virtual Choir gets 5000 singers, 5000 videos have to be cut, scrubbed, and mixed into the final video, which means a tremendous amount of time and effort goes into creating this. This is why the Virtual Choir has now become so expensive to make - and why we need as much crowd funding as we can possibly get to make this video happen.

Not convinved? For the love of all things good and holy, listen to this and be awed.



That demo alone is enough to make anyone want to donate to and join Virtual Choir 4. (You don't have to donate to be a part of it, but any contribution would be extremely helpful!)

So if you have any love of good music at all, please help make the virtual choir happen by clicking here and donating any amount you possibly can.