Eric Whitacre’s The Sacred Veil - Presented by Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland

The most recent collaboration between Eric Whitacre and poet/lyricist Charles Anthony Silvestri, The Sacred Veil captures the human experience through an intimate and compelling story of life, love and loss. Silvestri’s wife, Julie, died of ovarian cancer at age 36 in 2005, leaving two young children. Including texts from Silvestri, Whitacre, and Julie herself, the profoundly moving score tells a story of courtship, love, loss, and the search for solace. The lyrics are also used to evoke Silvestri’s concept of a thin veil that separates the past from the future, the living from the dead, the temporal from the eternal. Whitacre’s profoundly moving score uses simple melodies played by the piano and a solo cello to provide a ground for the sometimes straightforward, sometimes soaringly complex choral parts. The Sacred Veil is one of the most important musical works of our time, a work of cathartic and transformative art that captures the human experience, and that resonates universally for anyone whose grief—recent or deep-seated—has never completely found closure. Movements: 0:00 The Veil Opens 6:43 In A Dark & Distant Year 9:11 Home 13:04 Magnetic Poetry 21:11 Whenever There is Birth 24:24 I'm Afraid 30:18 I Am Here 32:10 Delicious Times 38:17 One Last Breath 40:10 Dear Friends 43:29 You Rise, I Fall 52:27 Child of Wonder Performed April 26, 2026 Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland https://www.portlandschoir.org