THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2019-2020
Grammy® Awardwinning
composer
and conductor Eric
Whitacre is among
today’s most popular
musicians. His
works have been
programmed worldwide
by millions of
amateur and professional
performers,
while his groundbreaking
Virtual
Choirs have united
singers from over 120 different countries. Whitacre, a
graduate of the prestigious Juilliard School of Music,
is presently artist in residence with the Los Angeles
Master Chorale, following five years as composer
in residence at the University of Cambridge, UK.
As conductor of the Eric Whitacre Singers, he has
released such chart-topping albums including Light
and Gold and Water Night. In high demand as guest
conductor, he has drawn capacity audiences to
concerts with the Netherlands Radio Choir, London
Symphony Orchestra, Flemish Radio Choir,
and Minnesota Orchestra. His creative versatility
shines through collaborations with legendary Hollywood
composer Hans Zimmer and British pop
icons Laura Mvula, Imogen Heap and Annie Lennox,
and major classical commissions for, among others,
the BBC Proms, Minnesota Orchestra, Rundfunkchor
Berlin, The Tallis Scholars, Chanticleer,
Los Angeles Master Chorale and The King’s Singers.
A charismatic speaker, Whitacre has given keynote
addresses for many Fortune 500 companies and
global institutions, from Apple and Google to the
World Economic Forum in Davos and the United Nations
Speaker’s Programme, while his two mainstage
talks at the hugely influential TED conference in Long
Beach, California, received standing ovations. He
reached new audiences in 2018 when his composition
Deep Field became the foundation for a pioneering
audiovisual collaboration between Whitacre,
NASA, the Space Telescope Science Institute, Music
Productions and 59 Productions.
Leading performances
praised as
“intense, richly detailed…
polished and
well-crafted” (Miami
Herald), Brett Karlin
is quickly establishing
himself as a dynamic
conductor of
choral-orchestral
masterworks. Having
worked with a wide
variety of ensembles,
Karlin is a passionate
performer of large-scale symphonic masterpieces,
while equally at home with historically informed performances
of distinctive Baroque repertoire.
As the artistic director of both the Master Chorale of
South Florida and Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, Karlin
leads over 250 singers through choral-orchestral
masterworks and prepares the choirs for collaborative
performances with other artists and ensembles,
including the Cleveland Orchestra, Russian National
Orchestra, Florida Orchestra, Itzhak Perlman, Eric
Whitacre, Andrea Bocelli, and Kristin Chenoweth,
among many others.
As artistic director of The Master Chorale of Tampa
Bay, Karlin will prepare the chorale for several masterworks
and pops concerts with TFO. He will also
lead the ensemble in two performances: Faure’s
Requiem and a concert of holiday favorites. Last
season, the 40th anniversary for The Master Chorale
of Tampa Bay, featured a concert tour to New York
City for the ensemble’s debut at St. John the Divine
Cathedral and Carnegie Hall.
In addition, Karlin has previously held the positions
of music director for the Broward Symphony Orchestra
and chorus master for Florida Grand Opera,
and he mentored the next generation of classical
musicians as the director of Florida’s Singing Sons
and Seraphic Fire’s Miami Choral Academy. He has
maintained guest conducting engagements with a
variety of choral, orchestral, and academic ensembles,
including The Symphonia, Lynn Philharmonia,
Seraphic Fire, and several All-County/Honor Choir
ensembles.
ERIC WHITACRE
Guest Conductor
BRETT KARLIN
Artistic Director
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