In 1999,[1] attorney and professional vocalist Julia Armstrong commissioned Whitacre to compose a choral composition as a memorial to her parents.[2][3] She suggested the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" that Robert Frost had published[2] in 1923, and wanted the work to be premiered by the 16-voice choral ensemble Austin ProChorus in Austin, Texas, being a member of the group.[3] Whitacre set the composition for eight parts (SSAATTBB),[1] and it was premiered by the choir[4] in October 2000.[1]
After the work was performed also by The Concordia Choir, conducted by René Clausen, and at the 2001 national convention of the American Choral Directors Association,[1] Whitacre learned that the Frost poem was still under U.S. copyright, and he could not publish the work before the copyright expired,[2] without the consent of the Frost literary estate, which refused to grant permission.[3] Rather than giving up publishing the work, Whitacre asked poet and frequent collaborator Charles Anthony Silvestri to write a new text which would correspond to the meter of the Frost poem and to the expressive details Whitacre had emphasized in the music.[3] The next day Silvestri offered the poem "Sleep", taking up the theme of sleep from the last stanza of Frost's poem.[1][2] Whitacre has stated that he prefers the Silvestri text over the original.[2]
Whitacre selected the piece for his "virtual choir" project in 2010, in which videos submitted by hundreds of volunteer singers were combined to produce a video representation of a combined performance.[1]
Whitacre originally believed the Frost poem's copyright would not expire until 2038;[2][3] it in fact expired on 1 January 2019.[1] Whitacre has stated that he does not plan to release the work with the original text.[1]
Performances, recordings and arrangements
The work appears on Whitacre's 2010 album Light and Gold, his first album for Decca and the first he conducted himself, performed by a group called the Whitacre Singers.[5]Sleep was also recorded in collaboration with Whitacre in 2001 by the BYU Singers and was included in a 2005 collection of choral works by Whitacre performed by Polyphony and conducted by Stephen Layton.[6][7][8]
