The Sacred Veil

Charles Anthony Silvestri (E)

"This hour-long work sets a text by Whitacre's longstanding friend and collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri and commemorates the death of the poet's young wife ]ulie from ovarian cancer. The 12 movements are by turns heart-wrenching, meditative and affirming. Whitacre's score is at once complex yet emotionally direct."
BBC Music Magazine

“The Sacred Veil may be the single most important musical contribution in our time, perhaps in any time, to a non-religious, as well as non-political—perhaps we might say non-teleological understanding of death and loss. Its length and difficulty may preclude it from inclusion in your average funeral, but to experience it in performance with 40 singers, or perhaps in recorded form, may be transformative for those whose grief, recent or deep-seated, has never completely found closure.”
People’s World