Eric Whitacre

The truth is, I'm not such a great singer, and so my whole harmonic language developed - and I think still exists - in a very pragmatic way: which is that the singers start either on a major or minor triad; half of them hold it and half of them move somewhere else - so there's an established tonality. As a singer, if you're on a G Major chord and then move to an A Major chord, suddenly you find yourself in the middle of this quite complex, shimmering cluster.