WHAT: The Los Angeles Master Chorale will light up this holiday season with four spectacular concerts that include a world premiere by Swan Family Artist-in-Residence Eric Whitacre, the now-classic O Magnum Mysterium by Morten Lauridsen, and Handel's Messiah. Eric Whitacre will conduct the venerable ensemble at Festival of Carols on December 7 at 8:00 PM and December 14 at 2:00 PM at Walt Disney Concert Hall, including his world premiere of The Gift of the Magi, a setting of O. Henry's charming tale of love and generosity.

Three years ago, after a visit from his longtime collaborator and friend, lyricist and poet Charles Anthony (Tony) Silvestri, composer Eric Whitacre found a poem Silvestri had left for him sitting on his piano. Silvestri had lost his wife to cancer 12 years previously, losing his soul mate and leaving him to bring up their two young children. He had not been able to write about the experience for a long time. The poem he left for Whitacre was called The Veil Opens and Whitacre immediately sat down and began to set it to music. The resulting piece is part of a broader work based on Silvestri's poetry addressing all stages of life and death called The Sacred Veil that will receive its world premiere by the Los Angeles Master Chorale conducted by Whitacre in Walt Disney Concert Hall Saturday, February 16 at 2 PM and Sunday, February 17 at 7 PM.