[1] Whitacre studied composition with Ukrainian composer Virko Baley and choral conducting with David B. Weiller, completing his bachelor's degree in 1995.

Whitacre went on to earn his master's degree in composition at the Juilliard School, where he studied with John Corigliano and David Diamond.

[2] While at Juilliard he met his future wife, soprano Hila Plitmann, and two of his closest friends, composers Steven Bryant and Jonathan Newman.

Around January 25, 2011,[8] Whitacre began working with film composer Hans Zimmer on the music for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

[9] His wife, Hila Plitmann, sang the solo material in the theme, having also invented the language the mermaids were singing in the film, a combination of Latin, Hebrew and, as she says, 'Elvish'.

Whitacre's Soaring Leap initiative is a dynamic one-day workshop where singers, conductors, and composers read, rehearse and perform several of his works.

[12] From October to December 2010, Whitacre was a visiting fellow at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, during Michaelmas (Autumn) Term.

A trademark of Whitacre's pieces is the use of aleatoric and indeterminate sections, as well as unusual score instructions involving, in some cases, hand actions or props.

[22] Anthony Tommasini described Whitacre's "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine" in 2005 as "full of sound effects, portentous harmony and fractured riffs", writing that "the music was rather hokey, like a choral equivalent of a blatant film score.

[25][26] Whitacre's Virtual Choir projects were inspired by a video sent to him of a young girl named Britlin Losee[27][28] from Glen Cove, New York, singing one of his choral pieces.

Whitacre's Virtual Choir performance of Lux Aurumque has received almost 6.5 million views (as of July 2020), featuring 185 singers from 12 countries.

Other Virtual Choir projects include 'Glow' written for the Winter Dreams holiday show at Disneyland Adventure Park, California.

[42] Deep Field: The Impossible Magnitude of the Universe is a 4k film for IMAX, cinema, projection in concert with live orchestra and for screenings at arts and science events.

The Eric Whitacre Singers made their BBC Proms debut in 2012 in a program that included a collaboration with singer/songwriter Imogen Heap.

They work regularly with British soul artist Laura Mvula, and featured at the iTunes Festival, broadcast to 119 countries, performing with Hans Zimmer, and at an experiential installation for Anya Hindmarch in 2018.

[49] In December 2010, Whitacre conducted the I Vocalisti choir in Hamburg, and was a guest conductor of the Christmas performance of the Berlin Rundfunkchor.

[50] In November 2010, Whitacre conducted Côrdydd, a Cardiff-based mixed choir, and friends in a concert of his work at the BBC Hoddinott Hall in the Wales Millennium Centre.

[52] Whitacre is a founding member of BCM International, a quartet of composers consisting of himself, Steven Bryant, Jonathan Newman, and James Bonney, which aspires to "enrich the wind ensemble repertoire with music unbound by traditional thought or idiomatic cliché.

[55] In June 2014, Whitacre gave a live webcast from the Kennedy Center and subsequently conducted a massed choir of 400 singers on the Mall, Washington D.C., to mark Flag Day and the bicentenary of "The Star-Spangled Banner".

[57] The Los Angeles Times described the work as "memorably [celebrating] the precarious beauty of life, offering the welcome consolation of art and a momentary stay against our collective fate.

"[58] The work was premiered at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, in February 2019,[59] and recordings released in late August 2020.