“Leonardo dreams of his flying machine” - stylistic aspects. Inside Eric Whitacre’s fascinating musical world

Abstract

Grammy Award-winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre is among today’s most popular musicians. Born in Nevada in 1970, Eric is a graduate of the prestigious Juilliard School of Music (New York). Charles Alan Sylvestri’s poem “Leonardo dreams of his flying machine” is a dramatic story of hope and optimism that takes the listener on a great adventure into the great unknown. Leonardo functions as the agonist of the poem who is “tormented” by his need to fly and touch the sky. Leonardo da Vinci was certainly the definition of a true "Renaissance man". Da Vinci is also regarded as one of the greatest inventors to have ever lived; his notebooks are filled with sketches and notes for inventions that were far ahead of his time. What must have been going through his mind when he was coming up with these revolutionary ideas? That is the question that composer Eric Whitacre and poet Charles Anthony Silvestri attempt to answer in this piece, “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine”.