Voices With Bite
Caroline Shaw (pictured at right, second row) will perform with the vocal octet Roomful of Teeth on Nov. 2. Shaw won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
American composer Caroline Shaw, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music, will perform at Dickinson with the critically acclaimed vocal octet Roomful of Teeth on Saturday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m. in the Rubendall Recital Hall, Weiss Center for the Arts, 240 West High Street.
Roomful of Teeth is a TimeOut New York "Critic's Pick" ensemble that is re-imagining singing in the 21st century. Their concert caps a four-day residence at Dickinson, where they will present a series of master classes, workshops, lectures and roundtable discussions.
Shaw won the Pulitzer for Partita for 8 Voices, an inventive a cappella work that embraces speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and vocal effects. In addition to her performances with Roomful of Teeth, Shaw performs as a violinist with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble.
The collaboration's project's debut album, Roomful of Teeth, was released in 2012. The New York Times called it "sensually stunning." Included on many "best of 2012" lists, the album topped the classical charts on iTunes and Amazon, even breaking into the top 10 on the Billboard charts. NPR deemed the album "fiercely beautiful and bravely, utterly exposed."
Founded in 2009 by Brad Wells, Roomful of Teeth is a vocal project dedicated to mining the expressive potential of the human voice through study with masters from non-classical traditions around the world. The ensemble gathers annually at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, where they've studied Tuvan throat singing, yodeling, belting, Inuit throat singing, Korean P'ansori, Georgian singing and Sardinian cantu a tenore styles with some of the world's top performers and teachers of the styles.
Published October 25, 2013