Eric Whitacre is well-known for using the words of previously established works for his compositions. The Mission Peak Chamber Singers performed his wistful composition, Goodnight, Moon, in 2021, and more recently he has taken one of his most famous works, Sleep, and set the poem which inspired it, Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” to the original slightly dissonant tune. You can hear it in person on his 2026 tour.
Today’s piece is based on a poem much older than Frost’s. Rudyard Kipling published Seal Lullaby in 1893, and included it as part of The Jungle Book in 1894. All that’s added to the original poem are overlapping “ooohs.”
