Eric Whitacre’s Godzilla Eats Las Vegas! A very special premiere in Lithuania and the Baltics!

Bel Canto Choir Vilnius & Friends. Live from Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall. December 21, 2015.

For Christmas 2015, Lithuania’s best mixed voice volunteer choir – Bel Canto Choir Vilnius – presented a modern and unique program featuring premieres of three special works not just in Lithuania, but the whole Baltic region. One of them – unexpected and brave work by Grammy-wining composer Eric Whitacre – Godzilla Eats Las Vegas! The piece was recorded live and is now available on iTunes, Amazon and Spotify!

Eric Whitacre, one of the most popular and performed composers of our time, a distinguished conductor, broadcaster and public speaker, calls his composition completely absurd and presents it as a joke. This playful and boisterous piece is like a mosaic of various audio sections, with contrasting and sometimes painfully familiar and characteristic musical details dropped together with seemingly no pattern other than the author’s own invented script.

The audience at the Lithuanian National Philharmonics have heard cries of panic, shouts, mambo and tango rhythms seeming to come from nowhere and small musical quotations from Frank Sinatra, Wayne Newton and even Tchaikovsky. To portray Godzilla’s fantastical story, Eric Whitacre uses about 30 different styles of music, instantly changing between them and thus creating the hectic mood of Godzilla’s visit to the American “Sin City”.

Our new version of the Godzilla Eats Las Vegas together with Eric Whitacre!

Godzilla Eats Las Vegas! – a very special evening premiere by Bel Canto Choir Vilnius, featuring a crazy medley of the Hollywood world that forced listeners to be surprised, look around and, finally, burst out laughing.

The composer created Godzilla Eats Las Vegas! in 1996, but in 2015 he created a new arrangement of the piece with another American composer, Jonathan Newman. The new version of the piece was premiered in May 2015 in Minnesota, USA. The composer gave Bel Canto Choir Vilnius the honor of presenting the work in Lithuania for the first time, thus becoming the first choir in the Baltic region to perform the new version of Godzilla Eats Las Vegas!

Artists & Performers

Bel Canto Choir Vilnius (Artistic Director Artūras Dambrauskas), Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (artistic director Sergej Krylov) with an additional orchestral composition, Giunter Percussion and pianist Artūras Anusauskas.

Credits

Audrius Valatkevičius (Executive Producer); Jonas Juozapaitis (Video Director & Editor); Šarūnas Burža (Director of Photography); Mykolas Lėckas (Lightening Design).

Audio recording performed by Artūras Pugačiauskas and Valdas Karpuška. Mixed & mastered at AP Sound Design and UP Records studios by Artūras Pugačiauskas with friendly support of Kipras Mašanauskas.

Get it on

Listen on Spotify

Performers & Credits

Bel Canto Choir Vilnius
Artistic Director Artūras Dambrauskas

Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (with an additional orchestral composition)
Artistic director Sergej Krylov

Giunter Percussion

Pianist Artūras Anusauskas

Audrius Valatkevičius
Executive Producer

Artūras Pugačiauskas and Valdas Karpuška
Audio recording

Mixed & mastered at AP Sound Design and UP Records studios by Artūras Pugačiauskas with friendly support of Kipras Mašanauskas.

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