Cloudburst (Whitacre)

Cloudburst is a composition by Eric Whitacre for eight-part choir, with piano and percussion accompaniment. Whitacre began writing the piece in 1991 (when the composer was 21), at the request of conductor Dr. Jocelyn K. Jensen for her high school choir - the final version of the piece was published in 1995. The text was adapted from Octavio Paz's poem El cántaro roto (The Broken Water-Jar), and inspired by the experience of the composer witnessing a desert cloudburst.