Monday Music: Sleep (Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir)

Here is one of Eric Whitacre's remarkable endeavors in which individual voices sent to him from around the world are combined. "The 2011 Virtual Choir video features 2052 performances of 'Sleep' from 1752 singers in 58 countries, individually recorded and uploaded to YouTube between September 2010 and January 2011." http://virtualchoir.org

The music is composed by Eric Whitacre for the poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri. Scroll down if you want to read the poem.

SLEEP*

The evening hangs beneath the moon,
A silver thread on darkened dune.
With closing eyes and resting head
I know that sleep is coming soon.

Upon my pillow, safe in bed,
A thousand pictures fill my head.
I cannot sleep, my mind’s a-flight;
And yet my limbs seem made of lead.

If there are noises in the night,
A frightening shadow, flickering light,
Then I surrender unto sleep,
Where clouds of dream give second sight,

What dreams may come, both dark and deep,
Of flying wings and soaring leap
As I surrender unto sleep,
As I surrender unto sleep.

©2001 by Charles Anthony Silvestri

(*Retrieved from http://www.charlesanthonysilvestri.com/sleep.html)

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